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SELECT POEMS 



ROBERT BROWNING 



By A. J. GEORGE 






Wordsworth's Complete Poetical Works With Introduction and Notes 


Wordsworth's Prelude " 


" 




Selections from Wordsworth .... " 


" 




Wordsworth's Prefaces and Essays on Poetry " 


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Select Poems of Burns " 


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Select Poems of Browning " 


a 




Burke's American Orations " 


" 




Burke's Speech on Conciliation ... " 


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Webster's Select Speeches " 


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Webster's Bunker Hill Oration and Wash- 






ington's Farewell Address .... " 


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Coleridge's Ancient Mariner .... " 


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Select Poems of Coleridge " 


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Coleridge's Essays on Poetry. From the 






Biographia Literaria " 


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Tennyson's Princess " 


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Carlyle's Essay on Burns " 


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Syllabus of English History and Literature " 


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From Chaucer to Arnold " 


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Shorter Poems of Milton. (Complete) . " 


<< 




Milton's Comus, Lycidas, Etc. (Pocket Classics) " 


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Byron's Childe Harold " 


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Emerson's Conduct of Life 


With Introduction 


Emerson's English Traits 


" 


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Hawthorne's Blithedale Romance 


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SELECT POEMS 



OF 



ROBERT BROWNING 



Arranged hi Chronological Order, with Biographical 
and Literary Notes 

S BY 

Af J. GEORGE, A. M., Litt. D. 

EDITOR OF "poetical WORKS OF WORDSWORTH," "SHORTER 

POEMS OF MILTON," " SELECT POEMS OF BURNS," 

" FROM CHAUCER TO ARNOLD," ETC. 



" Since Chaucer was alive and hale, 
No man hath walk'd along our roads with steps 
So active, so inquiring eye, or tongue 
So varied in discourse." 



BOSTON 

LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY 
1905 



^'Wo Oopitss rfacwyoii 

OCT 1905 



Copyright, igos. 
By a. J. George. 



AH Rights Reserved 



Published October, 1905 



THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A. 



^0 tl)e S^emor^ 

OF 

FRANCIS B. HORNBROOKE, D.D. 

SOMETIME PRESIDENT OF THE BOSTON BROWNING SOCIETY, 

A RIPE SCHOLAR AND RARE FRIEND, 

THIS VOLUME 

IN WHICH HE MANIFESTED A KINDLY INTEREST 

IS GRATEFULLY DEDICATED 



PREFACE 



IT is now generally admitted by competent students 
of Browning that — as a portion of his verse is so 
far below what is characteristic of him as a poet and 
artist — such a selection from his representative work 
in each period of the evolution of his mind and art as 
will present his peculiar excellencies should be made 
accessible both to the student and general reader. In 
the present volume of selections — from "Pauline" to 
"Asolando" — an attempt has been made to reveal 
the principles which formed the mind and fashioned 
the art of this great teacher in his happiest moments 
and highest ideals. The poems are arranged in chrono- 
logical order ; and the notes are biographical and lit- 
erary, relating each poem to the events in the author's 
life out of which it grew, and to the characteristic 
forms of art in his own career and that of his great 
contemporaries, Wordsworth and Tennyson. This 
method of study has been tested for a long time by 
the editor in school and college classes, and with gen- 
eral readers, and has been found to be stimulating and 
rewarding. Professor Edward Dowden closes his in- 
teresting and suggestive study of the life and work of 
Browning with this sentence : " Time will make its 
discreet selection from his writings. And the portion 
which seems most likely to survive is that which pre- 
sents in true forms of art the permanent passions of 
humanity and characters of enduring interest." 



viii Preface 

On one occasion Browning uttered this prohibition 
against those who would pry into his private Ufa be- 
cause he happened to be a man of genius : 

" A peep through my window, if you prefer ; 
But, please you, no foot over threshold of mine." 

During his life all self-respecting people honored this 
wish of his, and since his death have desired to know 
only such facts as influenced the development of 
his mind and art. In the absence of such aids we 
have had much glowing rhetoric and shrill panegyric, — ' 
in themselves somewhat repelling to the student and 
general reader who desired to come into close personal 
relations with the personahty of the poet. His nearest 
relatives and friends have now removed the prohibition, 
and have invited those who are interested in literary 
history to cross the threshold and sit by his fireside, 
and even listen to the sacred story of how he loved 
one only and how that love enriched and ennobled 
his life. In the " Life and Letters of Robert Brown- 
ing," by Mrs. Sutherland Orr, " The Letters of Robert 
Browning and Elizabeth Barrett," " Mrs. Browning's 
Letters," " Personalia," by Edmund Gosse, Mrs. Ar- 
thur Bronson's '* Browning in Venice " and " Browning, 
in Asolo," *' Story and his Friends," by Henry James, 
there have been given to us those elements of perspec- 
tive necessary to a right view of works of art such as 
he created. With Mrs. Orr's "Handbook to Robert 
Browning's Works," Dr. Berdoe's " The Browning En- 
cyclopedia," Mr. Stopford Brooke's "The Poetry of 
Robert Browning," and Professor Dowden's " Robert 
Browning," there is little reason why one should be 
disturbed by the spectre of Browning's obscurity. 

As Browning seldom recast his lines there is little 
reason for introducing textual notes, and as extended 



Preface ix 

glossarial and explanatory notes would be out of place 
in a volume of this kind, — the general reader does not 
care for them, and the special student should prepare 
his own, — I have limited myself to such notes as are 
biographical and critical. 

As the biographical notes present the main features 
of Browning's life, and the literary notes the leading 
characteristics of his art, I have devoted the Introduc- 
tion to a consideration of the genesis, progress, and 
nature of that disposition which we call optimism in 
the teaching of Browning, and his great contemporary, 
Wordsworth. 

It is impossible to ascertain the date of composition 
of many of Browning's poems, and therefore I have 
arranged them in the order of their first publication by 
the poet, and have placed the date of publication at 
the head of each poem. In every case the latest text 
has been given. The only poems not given entire are 
" Pauline," " Paracelsus," and " Pippa Passes." 

I am indebted to my friend Professor Edward 
Dowden of Trinity College, Dublin, for helpful sugges- 
tions in regard to the list of poems here included. 

I thank The Macmillan Company and the Boston 
Browning Society for permission to use parts of my 
paper now printed in the "Boston Browning Society 
Papers" in the Introduction to this volume. 



A. J. G. 



Brookline, Mass. 
Sept., 1905. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 



Preface . . 

Introduction 



FIRST PERIOD — 1841. 

1833- 
From " Pauline : A Fragment of a Confession" 

A Reflection i 

Early Ideals i 

A Revelation 3 

Imaginative Delight 4 

A Crisis 4 

Recovery S 

1835- 
From " Paracelsus " 

Paracelsus Aspires <> 7 

Aprile's Song 9 

Aprile's Revelation 10 

Song: " Heap cassia, sandal-buds, and stripes " . . 12 

Song: " Thus the Mayne glideth " 12 

Paracelsus Attains 13 



SECOND PERIOD— 1841-1868. 

1 841. 

From " Pippa Passes: A Drama" 

New Year's Hymn 20 

Song : "The year 's at the spring" 20 

Song : " Give her but a least excuse to love me T' . 20 

Song : " A king lived long ago " 21 

Song : " Over-head the tree-tops meet " 22 

The Day's Close at Asolo 23 



xii Table of Contents 

1842. 

DRAMATIC LYRICS pack 
Cavalier Tunes : 

I. Marching Along 25 

II. Give a Rouse 26 

III. Boot and Saddle 26 

My Last Duchess 27 

Incident of the French Camp 28 

Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister 30 

Waring 32 

Cristina 39 

The Pied Piper of Hamelin : A Child's Story ... 41 



1845. 

DRAMATIC ROMANCES AND LYRICS 

" How they brought the Good News from Ghent to 

Aix" 49 

Pictor Ignotus 51 

The Lost Leader 53 

Home Thoughts, from Abroad 54 

Home Thoughts, from the Sea 55 

The Bishop orders his Tomb at Saint Praxed's 

Church 55 

The Flower's Name 58 

The Flight of the Duchess 61 

Fame 84 

The Boy and the Angel 84 

The Glove 87 



MEN AND WOMEN 

Love Among the Ruins 92 

A Lovers' Quarrel 94 

Evelyn Hope 99 

Up at a Villa — Down in the City 100 

Fra Lippo Lippi 105 

^r— A Toccata of Galuppi's 115 

By the Fireside 118 

Any Wife to Any Husband 125 

An Epistle containing the Strange Medical Experi- 
ence of Karshish, the Arab Physician 130 

My Star 138 

Instans Tyrannus 138 

" Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came "... 141 

Respectability 147 

The Statue and the Bust 148 



Table of Contents xili 

PAGE 

How it strikes a Contemporary 156 

The Last Ride Together 159 

The Patriot 162 

Memorabilia 163 

Andrea del Sarto (called "The Faultless Painter") 164 

Old Pictures in Florence 171 

Saul 179 

"De Gustibus " . . 195 

Holy-Cross Day 196 

Cleon 201 

Two in the Campagna 210 

A Grammarian's Funeral 212 

"Transcendentalism: A Poem in Twelve Books " . 216 

Misconceptions 217 

One Word More. To E. B. B 218 



i»b4. 

DRAMATIS PERSONS 

James Lee's Wife 224 

Dis Aliter Visum; or Le Byron de Nos Jours . . . 235 

.— ~- Abt Vogler 240 

Rabbi Ben Ezra 244 

A Death in the Desert 251 

Confessions 268 

Prospice 269 

A Face 270 

Apparent Failure 271 

Epilogue to Dramatis Personse 273 



THIRD PERIOD — 1868-18S9. 

1872. 

Prologue to Fifine at the Fair. (Amphibian) . . 276 

1876. 

From " Pacchiarotto with Other Poems " 

Natural Magic 278 

Magical Nature 279 

Herve Riel 279 

Epilogue to Pacchiarotto 284 

1878. 

La Saisiaz 290 

Epilogue to the Two Poets of Croisic 322 



XIV Table of Contents 

1879. 

DRAMATIC IDYLS , pagb 

Pheidippides 325 

1880. 

DRAMATIC IDYLS — SECOND SERIES 

Muleykeh 331 

Epilogue to Dramatic Idyls — Second Series . . . 335 

1883. 
JOCOSERIA 

Wanting Is — What? 336 

Never the Time and the Place 336 



Epilogue to Ferishtah's Fancies 337 

1889. 

ASOLANDO: FANCIES AND FACTS 

Prologue to Asolando 338 

Poetics 340 

Summum Bonum 340 

A Pearl, a Girl 341 

Speculative 341 

Epilogue to Asolando 34^ 

Notes 345 

References 409 

Index to Poems 411 

Index to First Lines 415 



INTRODUCTION^ 

English literature of the nineteenth century derives 
its distinction from, if not its superiority over, that 
of any preceding century, from the fact that it has 
kept close to life — its passion, its pathos, its power. 

The movement it has told of life, 
Its pain and pleasure, rest and strife. 

It has revealed 

The thread which binds it all in one, 
And not its separate parts alone. 

We hear much in these days of the Spirit of the 
Age, and perhaps too little of the Spirit of the Ages. 
The spirit of any age, however enlightened it may be, 
is an unsafe guide if it does not embody the best of 
what the ages have found to be true. We are con- 
stantly elevating costume above character, the tran- 
sient above the abiding, phenomena above noumena, 
cleverness above style, method above spirit. Our 
attention in the classroom and the study is too 
often directed away from the great sources of power 
to the forms under which that power has revealed 
itself. 

The moral progress of the world is most impressive 
and instructive when viewed in the great moments 
of the inner life, — those moments awful when 
power streamed forth ; and the soul received the 
light reflected, as a light bestowed. These are the 
periods when earnest souls get glimpses of the eter- 

1 Parts of this Introduction appeared in the editor's address 
on The Optimism of Wordsworth and Browning, before the 
Boston Browning Society, March 4, 1895, now printed in Bos- 
ton Browning Society Papers. 



xvi Introduction 

nal truths ; it is then that a height is reached in life 
from which are glimpses of a height that is higher. 
This is merely afhrming that, consciously or uncon- 
sciously, the race has lived and moved and had its 
being in one or the other of two great conceptions of 
human life : the ideal or the material ; or, in terms 
of philosophy, Idealism or Materialism. The various 
forms of Art are but the revelations of man's ascent 
of the heights and his vision there. The Vedic 
Hymns, the Hebrew Psalms, Greek Art in all its 
forms, are but the meeting-place of the finite and the 
infinite. Where there is no vision the people perish, 
is the revelation of history. 

As the man of rich and varied interests has been 
the man of the largest influence, — the most interest- 
ing character, — because of his sympathy with the 
life of our common humanity and his belief that it is 
at heart sound, so the literature which has reflected 
this godlike enthusiasm has been the literature of the 
greatest uplift in an age of marvellous material inter- 
ests, — an age which, in its worship of the actual, 
was in danger of losing the reaL The inspired singers 
and prophets of the century have sounded this 
note : 

In faultless rhythm the ocean rolls, 
A rapturous silence thrills the skies ; 

And on this earth are lovely souls 
That softly look with aidful eyes. 

Though dark, O God, thy course and track, 
We think Thou must at least have meant 

That nought which lives should wholly lack 
The things that are more excellent. 

Mr. Richard Holt Hutton has given us a study of 
four leaders, guides to thought in matters of faith, — 
Newman, Arnold, Carlyle, and George Eliot, — who 
influenced the age through the art of prose. They 
represent certain phases of movement toward the new 
world where humanity is regarded as a spiritual total- 
ity, living, moving, and having its being in the life of 
the Eternal. It is in the poetry of Wordsworth, 



Introduction xvii 

Tennyson, and Browning that we find most clearly 
reflected this great awakening. Much may be gained 
by a comparative study of the works of these great 
poets, especially of Wordsworth and Browning, by 
showing how one of the earliest of this gladsome 
choir, — the poet of serene and blessed moods, — 
whence came visions of — 

Something far more deeply interfused, 
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, — 

clasps hands across the century with that later fellow- 
laborer — the poet of tasks — who, as he marched 
breast forward, cried. 

Strive and thrive ! Speed, — fight on, fare ever 
There as here ! 

It is indeed worth our while to study the mind and 
art of such teachers at a time when certain other 
aspirants for leadership come to us and say : " You 
can dismiss as a fond dream the doctrine of a Divine 
Father. You are of age, and do not need a Father." 
Or again : " We are realists, looking facts in the face, 
and see no evidence in the world that throughout the 
ages one unceasing purpose of wisdom and goodness 
runs." 

There is a story, told with a great deal of satisfac- 
tion by the dalesmen of the httle valley of Seathwaite 
in the English Lakes, of an old rector who in time 
of drought had been ordered by the bishop to offer 
prayers for rain. On the day appointed for that 
service he went out and made the usual observations 
as to sky and wind, and then went to his chapel and 
announced to his congregation that it was of no use 
for them to pray for rain so long as the wind was 
blowing over Hard-Nott. He did not think it wise 
to fly in the face of Providence as revealed in the 
laws of nature. 

We are not always so wise as was this Cumber- 
land dalesman, for we often invoke blessings from 



xviii Introduction 

the great creators of literature in defiance of the 
fact that the wind is blowing over Hard-Nott. We 
do not take the trouble to study the conditions of 
heredity and environment governing the nature of 
these men — we forget that the wind is blowing over 
Hard-Nott. 

There was a time when it was thought possible to 
fully understand a great author, or a great era in his- 
tory, by confining one's attention to that author or 
that era ; but methods of interpretation in literature 
and history have been revolutionized by the applica- 
tion of the great principle of Evolution. The greatest 
obstacle to progress in the new methods has been the 
disposition of a coterie or a clique to close its eyes to 
everything but the one object of veneration, be that 
object a person, a book, or a given period in the 
world's history. 

We have had during the last quarter of our century 
some striking illustrations of the new spirit, the most 
noteworthy being in the sphere of what is known as 
Higher Criticism. The Lowell Institute lectures of 
1893, by a prominent college president and orthodox 
clergyman, furnished a beautiful example of the new 
spirit and the new method. The lecturer sought for 
the religious content in institutions and in literature 
which twenty-five years ago would have been consid- 
ered as totally irreligious. 

When the Wordsworth Society was instituted, Mr. 
Matthew Arnold took great pains to warn its members 
against the spirit of a clique. He said : " If we are 
to get Wordsworth recognised by the public, we must 
recommend him, not in the spirit of a clique but in 
the spirit of disinterested lovers of poetry. We must 
avoid the historical estimate, and the personal esti- 
mate, and we must seek the real estimate.''^ Mr. 
Stopford Brooke, not long after Browning's death, 
warned us against those "who deceive themselves 
into a belief that they enjoy poetry because they 
enjoy Browning, while they never open Milton and 
have only heard of Chaucer and Spenser." A third 



IntrodMction xix 

great teacher and interpreter of literature, Professor 
Dovvden, has sounded the same note of warning, 
and has pointed out the only method by which 
we can arrive at a real estimate. " Our prime 
object," says he, " should be to get into living 
relation with a man, with the good forces of nature 
and humanity that play in and through him. Ap- 
proach a great writer in the spirit of cheerful and 
trustful fraternity ; this is better than hero-worship. 
A great master is better pleased to find a brother 
than a worshipper or a serf." In keeping close to 
the great writers from Homer to Browning, we keep 
close to life, and if we thus become members of the 
one Catholic Apostolic Church of literature, it will 
matter little who may be the bishop of our particular 
diocese. 

A teacher of literature should present no literary 
creed to which he demands assent, nor hold a brief 
as for a client. He should try to reveal an attitude 
of mind which has been produced by reading and 
reflection, — an attitude which may be modified by 
further reading and reflection. His position should 
be neither that of a defendant nor that of a judge, 
but that of a guide. Now, the requisites for a good 
guide are : familiarity with the ground, and a willing- 
ness to keep himself in the background and allow us 
to do our own seeing. 

The greatest question to be asked in regard to a 
poetic teacher is : What was his attitude toward those 
problems, those limitless desires in which every human 
being shares? Did he inspire hope in the unseen 
order of things? The disposition which we call op- 
timism, as it reveals itself in literature and life, is dif- 
ficult of exact definition, and yet we must image 
the whole, then execute the parts. We need such a 
conception as will admit of the poetic and the philo- 
sophic essentials, — that will not be so poetic as to 
be vague nor so philosophic as to be abstruse, — 
and we find such in the affirmation of the essential 
spiritual nature of the universe. This enthroncb man 



XX Introduction 

upon the heights, for it regards him in his threefold 
nature — 

What Does, what Knows, what Is ; three souls, one man — 

as the goal of Creative Energy and the special object 
of God's love. 

Pessimism is the denial of any such spiritual ele- 
ment in the universe and the consequent dethrone- 
ment of man. " Once dethrone Humanity, regard it 
as a mere local incident in an endless and aimless 
series of cosmical changes, and you arrive at a doc- 
trine, which, under whatever specious name it may 
be veiled, is at bottom neither more nor less than 
Atheism." ^ 

There is a class of writers claiming to be teachers 
who, while accepting what they call the demonstra- 
tions of the understanding as to man's origin and 
destiny, yet attempt to save him from the inevitable 
abyss, — from being drown'd in the deeps of a mean- 
ingless past. 

Of Heaven or Hell I have no power to sing, 

I cannot ease the burden of your fears, 
Or make quick-coming death a little thing, 

Nor for my words shall ye forget your tears ! 

Love deep as the sea as a rose must wither, 
As the rose-red seaweed that mocks the rose. 

Shall the dead take thought for the dead to love them ? 
What love was ever as deep as the grave ? 

They are loveless now as the grass above them. 
Or the wave. 

We may delight in these pretty theories while life 
moves serenely, but when the storm and stress come 
we then find we have need of such revelations as the 
world has tested. It is when we turn from such idle 
singers of an empty day to the great poets, that we 
are thrilled with the wild joys of living. 

With the optimism of Wordsworth and Browning 
we are all more or less familiar, but are we equally 
familiar with the causes and the nature of this per- 

1 John Fiske, Destiny of Man. 



Introdtiction xxi 

sonal note in each, by which one became the bearer 
of " plenteous health, exceeding store of joy, and an 
impassioned quietude," and the other became the 
"Subtlest Assertor of the Soul in Song "? 

In any attempt to assign causes for the optimism 
of a great teacher the influences of hereditary predis- 
position and of environment must be given a place, 
but a place subordinate to that third somewhat, — 
which we can neither analyze nor define, but which 
we know as the essential self, — the individuality. 

In the case of Wordsworth, heredity and early en- 
vironment were no doubt of deep significance, and we 
fear that too often they have been used as a sufficient 
cause of his optimism. We wish to show that they 
were efficient, but not sufficient ; that in Wordsworth's 
work we have not only the profoundest thought, but 
well-ordered thought, in union with poetic sensibility 
unique and unmatchable ; that in the union of 
natural magic and moral profundity the great body 
of his work is making for " rest and peace, and 
shade for spirits fevered with the sun " in a time 
when " there is no shelter to grow ripe, no leisure to 
grow wise." Emerson gave a just estimate of the 
value of heredity and environment in the problem 
which Wordsworth was to work out, when he said : 
" It is very easy to see that to act so powerfully in 
this practical age — as this solitariest and wisest of 
poets did — he needed, with all his Oriental abstrac- 
tion, the indomitable vigor rooted in animal consti- 
tution for which his countrymen are marked." 

His school days were spent in the rural valley of 
Hawkshead, at the Edward VI. School. There he 
lived the simple life of the dalesmen until he was 
prepared for the work of the university. He was a 
lover of the woods, the hills and the lakes, and these 
localities are rich in associations with his boyish sports, 
of harrying the raven's nest, of setting springes for 
woodcock that run along the smooth green turf, and 
of boating on Esthwaite and Windermere. ' The first 
period, or seed-time of his soul may be called the 



xxii Introduction 

period of unconscious relation to Nature, and it is of 
innportance to bear in mind the fact that in it he 
was Uving the free, simple, spontaneous life of a boy 
among boys, with nothing to distinguish him from his 
mates. He was thus saved from becoming either a 
prig or a prodigy. 

Yes, I remember when the changeful earth 
And twice five summers on my mind had stamped 
The faces of the moving year, even then 
I held unconscious intercourse with beauty 
Old as creation, drinking in a pure 
Organic pleasure from the silver wreaths 
Of curling mist, or from the level plain 
Of waters coloured by impending clouds. 

But in due time came the period of conscious love of 
Nature, which is a step of profound significance ; here 
is the beginning of the philosophic mind : 

Those incidental charms which first attached 
My heart to rural objects, day by day 
Grew weaker, and I hasten on to tell 
How Nature, intervenient till this time 
And secondary, now at length was sought 
For her own sake. 

It was in this period that the basis of his optimism 
was laid ; then it was that the essential spiritual na- 
ture of the universe was revealed to him. It is this 
note that characterizes all of his poems on Nature. 
It is his master vision — God in nature. He now sees 
into the life of things : 

I was only then 
Contented, when with bliss ineffable 
I felt the sentiment of Being spread 
O'er all that moves and all that seemeth still ; 
O'er all that, lost beyond the reach of thought 
And human knowledge, to the human eye 
Invisible, yet liveth to the heart ; 
O'er all that leaps and runs, and shouts and sings. 
Or beats the gladsome air ; o'er all that glides 
Beneath the wave, yea, in the wave itself. 
And mighty depth of waters. 

This was a note absolutely new in English poetry. 
It is the note which is sounded in every poem written 



Introductio7i xxiii 

before he rises into the sphere of the humanities and 
becomes the poet of man. I could illustrate it from 
thousands of his verses. It rises to its highest point 
of exultation in the Tintern Abbey : 

And I have felt 
A presence that disturbs me with the joy 
Of elevated thoughts ; a sense sublime 
Of something far more deeply interfused, 
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, 
And the round ocean, and the living air. 
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man ; 
A motion and a spirit, that impels 
All thinking things, all objects of all thought, 
And rolls through all things. 

The significance of this revelation as poetry has had 
its due recognition, but in the closing years of the 
century we are getting its significance as philosophy. 

Those who have followed the movements of 
modern thought have not failed to notice that the 
theist no longer gives much time to defending the 
outposts, when the central citadel is attacked ; this 
central citadel is the spiritual content of nature itself. 
Mr. John Fiske gave especial prominence to this 
conception in the preface to his Z/ifa a/ God. He 
said : " It is enough to remind the reader that Deity 
is unknowable, just in so far as it is not manifested 
to consciousness through the phenomenal world, — 
knowable, just in so far as it is thus manifested ; 
unknowable (in its entirety) in so far as it is infinite 
and absolute, — knowable in a symbolic way as the 
Power which is disclosed in every throb of the 
mighty rhythmic life of the Universe." Again, in 
Chapter I. : " As in the roaring loom of Time the 
endless web of events is woven, each strand shall 
make more and more clearly visible the living gar- 
ment of God." Both Wordsworth and Fiske have 
had the vague and uninstructive epithet of " Pantheist " 
hurled at them by those who feared the results of sus- 
tained and accurate thinking. " Christianity assumes 
an unseen world, and then urges that the life of Christ 
is the fittest way in which such a world could come 



xxiv Introduction 

into contact with the world we know. The essential 
spirituality of the universe, in short, is the basis of 
religion, and it is precisely this basis which is now 
assailed. ... It is on the ground of the cosmic law 
of interpenetrating worlds that I would claim for 
Wordsworth a commanding place among the teachers 
of this century." ^ Can there be any doubt as to the 
cause of Wordsworth's optimism or as to the signifi- 
cance of it in modern thought? Is it any wonder 
that he could sing of man, of nature, and of human 
life with hardly a note of despondency, and never one 
of despair? 

Wisdom and Spirit of the universe I 
Thou Soul that art the eternity of thought, 
That givest to forms and images a breath 
And everlasting motion, not in vain 
By day or star-light thus from my first dawn 
Of childhood didst thou intertwine for me 
The passions that build up our human soul ; 
Not with the mean and vulgar works of man, 
But with high objects, with enduring things — 
With life and nature — purifying thus 
The elements of feeling and of thought. 
And sanctifying, by such discipline, 
Both pain and fear, until we recognise 
A grandeur in the beatings of the heart. 

The final step in his ascent is that by which he 
rises from the love of Nature to the love of man. It 
was a critical moment for him, migration strange for 
a stripling of the hills, when he was transferred from 
the calm delights and simple manners of Hawkshead 
to that world within a world — a great university. 
Cambridge could present nothing in kind to take 
the place of those sights and sounds subhme with 
which he had been conversant, but she offered him 
those treasures which had been created for her by 
the hand of man. 

Oft when the dazzling show no longer new 

Had ceased to dazzle, ofttimes did I quit 

My comrades, leave the crowd, buildings and groves, 

^ F. W, Myers, Science and a Future Life. 



Introduction xxv 

And as I paced alone the level fields 
Far from those lovely sights and sounds sublime 
With which I had been conversant, the mind 
Drooped not; but there into herself returning, 
With prompt rebound, seemed fresh as heretofore. 

Here we have a still higher note of optimism. His 
mind drooped not, because he had as an everlasting 
possession the harvest of that first period of un- 
conscious intercourse with Nature. The riches which 
came to him in that period of health and happiness 
were the riches of — 



Spontaneous wisdom breathed by health — 
Truth, breathed by cheerfuhiess. 

We are inclined to think that this is- the most im- 
mediately helpful of all the poet's revelations. It is 
the fundamental note in the Character of the Happy 
Warrior. 

Who is the happy Warrior ? Who is he 
That every man in arms should wish to be ? 
— It is the generous Spirit, who, when brought 
Among the tasks of real life, hath wrought 
Upon the plan that pleased his boyish thought : 
Whose high endeavours are an inward light 
That makes the path before him always bright. 

It is this power to transmute sorrow, disappoint- 
ment, and defeat into means of strength that makes 
his poetry such a tonic to the weary and heavy-laden. 
When we rise to the heights, and can say in the face 
of disappointment, 

We will grieve not, rather find 
Strength in what remains behind, 

we have gained the secret of Wordsworth's optimism, 
and then — 

Farewell, farewell the heart that lives alone, 
Housed in a dream, at distance from the Kind I 
Such happiness, wherever it be known, 
Is to be pitied ; for 't is surely blind. 



XX vi Introduction 

But welcome fortitude, and patient cheer, 
And frequent sights of what is to be borne ! 
Such sights, or worse, as are before me here. — 
Not without hope we suffer and we mourn. 

*•' Wordsworth's optimism has no fear of sorrow or of 
evil. He can stand in the shadow of death and pain, 
ruin and failure, with sympathy that is almost painful 
in its quiet intensity ; the faith in the omnipotence 
' of love and man's unconquerable mind ' is never 
destroyed or weakened in him. The contemplation 
of evil and pain always ends with him, by an inevi- 
table recoil, in an inspired expression of his faith in 
the good which transmutes and transfigures it, as the 
clouds are changed into manifestations of the sun- 
light they strive to hide."-"- 

In passing from the optimism of Wordsworth to 
that of Browning we cannot do better than maintain 
the disposition shown by the older to the younger 
poet that evening at the rooms of Talfourd, when, 
in the presence of Macready, Landor, Miss Mitford, 
and others, the host proposed " The Poets of Eng- 
land," and with a kindly grace having alluded to the 
company of great men honoring him with their 
presence, presented "Mr. Robert Browning, the 
author of Paracelsus^ Miss Mitford, in speaking 
of the pride which Browning must have felt at that 
moment, says : " He was prouder still when Words- 
worth leaned across the table and with stately affa- 
bility said, ' I am proud to drink your health, Mr. 
Browning.' " All Wordsworthians, all disinterested 
lovers of poetry, are proud to drink the health of 
Robert Browning. 

We have seen that Wordsworth's optimism did not 
result from any victory of the intellect over the per- 
plexities of a scientific age. The era of modern 
science had not begun when this poet did his great 
work, but yet he foresaw what was sure to come with 
such an age. He foresaw that men would " pore," 

1 E. Caird, Literature and Philosophy. 



Introduction xxvii 

and was disturbed with the thought that they might 
" dwindle as they pored," and yet he had no fears 
that the most extensive researches of science would 
cut the nerve of poetry. He saw the dangers of the 
new age, and yet he could say : 

I exult. 
Casting reserve away, exult to see 
An intellectual mastery exercised 
O'er the blind elements. 

" The knowledge, both of the Poet and the Man of 
science," he says, " is pleasure ; but the knowledge 
of the one cleaves to us as a necessary part of our 
existence, our natural and inalienable inheritance ; the 
other is a personal and individual acquisition. The 
Man of science cherishes and loves truth in solitude ; 
the poet, singing a song in which all human beings 
join with him, rejoices in the presence of truth as our 
visible friend and hourly companion. Poetry is the 
breath and finer spirit of all knowledge ; it is the im- 
passioned expression which is in the countenance of 
all Science. ... If the time should ever come when 
what is now called Science shall be ready to put on, 
as it were, the form of flesh and blood, the Poet will 
lend his divine spirit to aid the transfiguration, and 
will welcome the Being thus produced as a dear and 
genuine inmate of the household of man." ^ 

The student of Tennyson and Browning is witness- 
ing the fulfilment of this prophecy of the last year 
of the eighteenth century. Tennyson, in accepting 
Evolution, which was thought by some to be a step 
toward atheism, says : 

If my body come from brutes tho' somewhat finer than their 
own, 
I am heir, and this my kingdom. Shall the royal voice be 
mute? 
No, but if the rebel subject seek to drag me from the throne, 
Hold the sceptre. Human Soul, and rule thy Province of the 
brute. 

^ Prefaces and Essays on Poetry, A. J. George, ed. 



xxviii Introduction 

I have climbed to the snows of Age and I gaze at a field in 
the Past, 
Where I sank with the body, at times, in the sloughs of a 
low desire, 
But I hear no yelp of the beast, and the Man is quiet at last 
As he stands on the heights of his life with a glimpse of a 
height that is higher. 

Browning's early life was spent near the busy haunts 
of men, and it was natural therefore that the sub- 
jects of his work should be man rather than nature. 
Wordsworth came to the love of man through the 
love of nature ; with Browning the order is reversed, 
man is everywhere primary in his thought. 

The life and work of Browning, as with Words- 
worth, falls naturally into three periods. The first 
period, until 1841, is that of preparation, in Pauline, 
Faracehus, and Sordello, during which time he was 
gradually coming to a consciousness of his powers. 
Pauline and Paracels2is are as distinctly revelations 
of his inner life as is the Prelude of Wordsworth's. 
In the second period, 1841-1 868, from the publica- 
tion of the first number of Bells and Pojuegranates 
to the completion of The Ring and the Book, he 
attained a full consciousness of his mission as a poet, 
and a full command of thought and expression upon 
a greater variety of subjects than had been seen in 
any poet since Shakespeare ; and we have studies of 
typical souls in almost every condition in life and 
of almost every form of experience, revealed in verse 
forms of widest range and of unique originality. This 
work is rich in imagination, vital in passion, and 
moving in melody ; of highest perfection and uni- 
versal appeal to the tenderest in human feeling and 
noblest in human thought — verily, bells for delight 
and pomegranates for sustenance of man. In the 
third period, 1 868-1 889, to which he passed through 
The Ring and the Book, we have less of the emotional 
imagination of the poet, and more of the subtle 
thinking about origins of thought and feeling. The 
romantic element of his nature, the revolutionary 
spirit, and the transcendental ideals were for a time 



Introduction xxlx 

subservient to that passion for scientific research. As 
Professor Dowden says, '* he was condemned to write 
with his left hand ; " and yet the Browningite of the 
narrow, exclusive, and sectarian school has often de- 
manded loyalty to this work as a test of discipleship. 
Such blundering praise as this has done Browning 
more harm than all the blundering blame for obscurity 
and other faults. Master poems are infrequent, and 
yet at times the intellectual and imaginative ele- 
ments are so fused by the vital soul of passion that 
the result is a "recapture of the first fine careless 
rapture." 

Now let us review these changes more in detail to 
ascertain how it was that he retained to the last his 
vision and faculty divine, — his noble optimism. 

Browning, with his first plunge into the depths, 
said in Paracelsus, — • that poem of his youth where 
may be found those fundamental truths which filled 
his life with a radiant hope in an endless future : 

Truth is within ourselves : it takes no rise 
From outward things, whate'er you may believe : 
There is an inmost centre in us all, 
Where truth abides in fulness ; and around, 
Wall upon wall, the gross flesh hems it in, 
This perfect, clear perception — which is truth ; 
A baffling and perverting carnal mesh 
Blunts it and makes it error : and " to know" 
Rather consists in opening out a way 
Whence the imprisoned splendour may escape, 
Than in affording entry for a light 
Supposed to be without. 

In Paracelsus we have united the two great prin- 
ciples which lie at the basis of all Browning's work ; 
one which has for its end knowledge ; the other 
which has for its end conduct. The first is Browning's 
philosophy ; the second, Browning's art. These cor- 
respond very well to the two great classes of literature 
as given by Matthew Arnold : scientific, ministering 
to our instinct for knowledge ; poetic, ministering to 
our instinct for conduct and beauty. Along these 
lines all life must move, and the poet who attempts 



XXX Introduction 

to lead here needs all the courage of the most 

resolute : 

Must keep ever at his side 
The tonic of a wholesome pride. 

For, ah ! so much he has to do : 
Be painter and musician too ! 
The aspect of the moment show, 
Tlie feeling of the moment know ! 
But, ah, then comes his sorest spell 
Of toil, — he must life's ?nove?ne?it tell ! 

Browning, more than any poet of modern times, 
has that intellectual fearlessness which is thoroughly 
Greek ; he looks unflinchingly upon all that meets 
him, and he apparently cares not for consequences. 
This impetuosity of mental action resulted in that 
duality which he seemed so careless about unifying, 
— philosophy and ethics. It is admitted by all that 
when Browning appeals to the head for the solution 
of the problem of evil, he works, not as an artist and 
poet, dealing with life as a whole, but as a philos- 
opher interested in certain problems suggested by the 
mind itself. His solution of the problem of evil can 
be stated in a few words. Starting with the great 
principle of evolution, that man is ever becoming, 
" made to grow, not stop," 

A thing nor God nor beast. 
Made to know that he can know and not more : 
Lower than God who knows all and can all. 
Higher than beasts which know and can so far 
As each beast's limit, 

he is bound to follow life through all its stages 
of pain and pleasure, victory and defeat, faith and 
doubt, and face the stern realities. How is he able 
to do this and not become a pessimist? He sees 
clearly all the struggle and misery ; he selects a Guido 
on the one hand, and a Saul on the other ; here a 
student " dead from the waist down," there a faith- 
ful teacher left to die in the desert, in order that he 
may be certain that he has seen life as it actually is. 
Nothing can save him from despair but the idea that 



hitroductio7i xxxi 

man is working out a moral ideal, in which God is 
omnipresent, and that the manifestation of God's 
presence in man is love : 

Be warned by me, 
Never you cheat yourself one instant ! Love, 
Give love, ask only love, and leave the rest ! 

Now this love is made perfect through suffering, 
man is a god though in the germ. This is percep- 
tion, not demonstration, and Browning has sought 
refuge in poetry, not philosophy ; but he will do 
better next time. Let us see what he does when 
asked to demonstrate the truth of this faith in the 
unity of God and man : 

Take the joys and bear the sorrows — neither with extreme 

concern ! 
Living here means nescience simply, 't is next life that helps 
to learn. 

Knowledge means 
Ever-renewed assurance by defeat, 
That victory is somehow still to reach. 

To each mortal peradventure earth becomes a new machine, 
Pain and pleasure no more tally in our sense than red and 
green. 

Each man has his own criterion — to question is 
absurd. Can it be that Browning is teaching a fatal 
agnosticism ? 

Wholly distrust thy knowledge, then, and trust 
As wholly love allied to ignorance ! 
There lies thy truth and safety. 

" In degrading human knowledge," says Professor 
Henry Jones, " the poet is disloyal to the fundamental 
principle of the Christian faith which he professed — 
that God can and does manifest himself in man." 
What shall we say to attaining even a moral life by 
such a sacrifice ? Shall we cast doubt upon the head 
in order to secure the heart? This seems, at least, 
to be an entire abandonment of the principle from 
which modern philosophy had its origin, Cogito ergo 
sum. We must confess, therefore, that Browning the 



xxxii Introduction 

philosopher fails us whenever he allows his subtle, 
analytic intellect to gain supremacy over his im- 
agination and passion. We find no optimism here ; 
we must turn to Browning the poet. 

We need not be disturbed in the least at the 
results reached in our study of Browning the phil- 
osopher. We all know that the most thorough and 
sympathetic criticism of Browning has insisted upon 
Browning the poet as the Browning who is to live. 
Modern philosophy takes no notice of Browning 
except to show that his philosophy — if philosophy 
it can be called — leads to agnosticism, and yet 
there are those who claim that Browning's final utter- 
ances are to be found in the argumentative poems, 
because they were, for the most part, his latest utter- 
ances. Mr. Stopford Brooke says : " I hold fast to 
one thing — that the best work of our poet, that by 
which he will always live, is not in his intellectual 
analysis, or in his preaching, or in his difficult think- 
ings, but in the simple, sensuous, and impassioned 
things he wrote out of the overflowing of his heart." 

Mr. William Sharp says : " It is as the poet he will 
live ; not merely as the ' novel thinker ' in verse ; 
logically, his attitude as thinker is unimpressive." 
"A philosophy of life," says Professor Jones, "which 
is based on agnosticism is an explicit self-contradiction, 
which can help no one. We must appeal from Brown- 
ing the philosopher to Browning the poet." " It 
was not much of a philosophy," says Mr. Saintsbury, 
" this which the poet half echoed from and half 
taught to the second half of the nineteenth century. 
But the poet is always saved by his poetry, and this 
is the case with Browning." Professor Dowden says : 
" His thought, so far as it is polemical, will probably 
cease to interest future readers." These men are 
not hostile to Browning ; they are his most sympa- 
thetic interpreters : but they appeal from the Aristo- 
telianism of Browning to his Platonism, and here 
too much cannot be said ; here his optimism is no 
trailing cloud, but a bright consummate star, shining 



1 



Introd-uction xxxiii 

clear and steady in the heavens from which so many 
have paled their ineffectual fire. Sound criticism 
reveals the failures as well as the successes in a 
poet's work ; but it never mistakes failures for suc- 
cesses. It has done its very necessary work for 
Wordsworth and Tennyson, and it is doing it for 
Browning. Our appreciation of their art is all the 
more vital and wholesome because we know the causes 
and the nature of their sometime failures. 

The age in which Browning lived was an age of 
introspection, and it is not surprising that at times he 
should think it necessary to assume the function of 
philosopher and attempt to solve the problem of evil. 
The only poem in this volume of Selections where he 
makes the essay of solving questions by the intellect 
which lie in quite other spheres is \x\. La Saisiaz ; and 
here we find the fundamental error which disfigures 
so many of his argumentative poems, — casting doubt 
upon the intellect in order to save the truths of the 
heart ; but he is more cautious here than elsewhere, 
for he speaks only for himself. The result of such a 
process is intellectual pessimism, absolute skepticism. 
If it be true that 

Living here means nescience simply, 

then why attempt to consi ruct any theory of good and 
evil, or of immortality? How can man be a moral 
agent upon such a doctrine of nescience or agnosti- 
cism ? It would put an end both to philosophy and 
poetry. Browning the philosopher in La Saisiaz fails 
us ; but fortunately the work is saved for poetry by 
the revelations of the heart, rising in revolution against 
the conclusions of the intellect and insisting upon the 
claims of love, which is the activity of his spirit as 
intelligence. Browning nowhere doubts when the 
heart rises up and utters, "I have felt." Out of this 
comes his great theory that the moral quality of the 
act is determined quite regardless of the power to 
execute; for 

'T is not what man Does that exalts him, 
But what man Would do. 



xxxiv Introduction 

Upon this conception of the moral consciousness of 
man he is able to rise from the pessimism into which 
the intellect alone had led him, and with his pulses 
beating anew he is restored to a noble optimism. 

In love success is sure, 
Attainment no delusion, whate'er the prize may be. 

Browning the poet quietly ignores the logical con- 
sequences of the theories held by Browning the 
philosopher, and gives us, not what is contrary to 
philosophy in general, but what is contrary only to 
his own poor argument ; he gives us the very thing 
which poetry is bound to give, — " such a living faith 
in God's relation to man as leaves no place for that 
helpless resentment against the appointed order so 
apt to rise within us at the sight of undeserved pain. 
This faith is manifested in the highest form in Chris- 
tian Theism." ^ Browning's optimism as poet and 
man is the result of Browning's Christian Theism. 

We have alluded to the fact that Browning as a poet 
dared to do what Wordsworth predicted the poet of 
the age of science could do. He has dared to follow 
side by side with the scientist, and use the material 
of the scientist for the ends of poetry. This work 
is distinctly different from that which Browning the 
philosopher does. This is nowhere more clearly 
revealed to us than in Brownhig as a Philosophi- 
cal and Religious Teacher, by Professor Jones. 
The author nowhere claims for Browning a place 
among the great philosophers ; but he rightly claims 
for him a place among the prophets. Browning as a 
prophet moves in a sphere forever undisturbed by 
the revelations of the scientist, simply because it is 
the sphere of poetry, the sphere of man's loves, man's 
hopes, man's aspirations. As Wordsworth did more 
for mankind by his Ode to Duty and his Ode on 
Intimations of Itfimortality than by his Ecclesiasti- 
cal Sonnets, as Tennyson sounded a higher note in 

1 A. J. Balfour, Foundations of Belief. 



Introduction xxxv 

his In Memoriam than in his Two Voices and the 
Supposed Confessions of a Second-rate Sensitive 
Mind, so Browning contributed more to the spiritual 
movement of the age by his Saul, Apparent Fail- 
ure, Prospice, Abt Vogler, etc., than by all his 
argumentative verse. These are indeed veritable 
fountain-heads of spiritual power. " High art," says 
Mr, F, W. Myers, " is based upon unprovable intui- 
tions, and of all the arts it is poetry whose intuitions 
take the brightest glow, and best illumine the mystery 
without us from the mystery within." This was the 
secret of Browning's work as an optimist, — he il- 
lumines the mystery without by the mystery within : 

Not on the vulgar mass 

Called " work," must sentence pass, 
Things done, that took the eye and had the price ; 

O'er which, from level stand. 

The low world laid its hand, 
Found straightway to its mind, could value in a trice. 

This is the note sounding everywhere in Browning's 
highest poetry, the note which it is the purpose of 
this volume of Selections to reveal. It is an appeal 
to the God-consciousness in every man — " what a 
man may waste, desecrate, never quite lose." 

But all, the world's coarse thumb 
And finger failed to plumb, 



All I could never be, 
All, men ignored in me, 
This, I was worth to God. 

It is no easy-going moral creed that we find in — 

Progress is the law of life, man is not Man as yet. 

A principle of restlessness, 
Which would be all, have, see, know, taste, feel, all. 

Oh, if we draw a circle premature. Heedless of far gain, 
Greedy for quick returns of profit, Sure 
Bad is our bargain ! 



xxxvi Introduction 

We see, therefore, that the optimism of Browning 
is the optimism of Christianity in its simplicity and 
directness : 

Are they perfect of lineament, perfect of stature ? 

In both of such lower types are we 
Precisely because of our wider nature ; 

For time, theirs ; — ours, for eternity. 

To-day's brief passion limits their range ; 

It seethes with the morrow for us and more. 
They are perfect — how else ? they shall never change : 

We are faulty — why not? we have time in store. 

Browning's joyous, fearless activity in studying 
life ; the noble aspirations of his intellect and the 
mighty passions of his heart ; his steady certainty 
that God and man are one in kind, and are working 
together in the universe ; his feeling that even hu- 
man experience has its place in fashioning man for 
his place in the divine order, and that it is by 
certain types of experience, called by many failures, 
that man marks his ascent on the road to success, — 
make him one of the world's great teachers. 

Thus at the close of his Hfe, having been wearied 
out with contrarieties in his intellectual quest, he 
returns to his first great ideal in Paracelsus : " God ! 
Thou art Love ! I build my faith on that ! " and 
reenforces it with all the wealth of his rich ex- 
perience of years by asserting that man, too, has 
the nature of God, has the principle of divinity, 
which is the culmination of the creative process 
called evolution. This is Browning's supreme reve- 
lation. It is this which gives the element of unity to 
his great poetry, and this element is none other than 
his own noble and unique personality revealing the 
sanity of true genius. 

So the message of Browning thus makes common 
cause with that of Wordsworth and Tennyson, al- 
though these poets did not attain by casting doubt 
upon the understanding ; they merely recognized 
that there was a lower and a higher. Wordsworth's 
highest note is — 



Introductio7t xxxvii 

We live by Admiration, Hope, and Love ; 
And even as these are well and wisely fix'd. 
In dignity of being we ascend. 



While that of Tennyson is — 

To feel, altho' no tongue can prove. 
That every cloud that spreads above 
And veileth love, itself is love. 

And Browning sings — 

My own hope is, a sun will pierce 
The thickest cloud earth ever stretched; 
That after Last, returns the First, 
Though a wide compass round be fetched ; 
That what began best, can't end worst. 
Nor what God blessed once, prove accurst. 

We can see no better ground for optimism than that 
of these poets who have given us veritable aids to 
faith. These surpassing spirits, in their serene faith 
in God and immortality, in their yearning for expan- 
sion of the subtle thing called Spirit, and their belief in 
an endless future, 

Never turn their backs, but march breast forward, , 

Never doubt clouds will break. 
Never dream, though right be worsted, wrong will triumph ; 
Hold we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better. 

Sleep to wake. 



APPRECIATIONS 

Browning never thinks but at full speed ; and the 
rate of his thought is to that of another man's as the 
speed of a railway to that of a wagon, or the speed of a 
telegraph to that of a railway. It is hopeless to enjoy the 
charm or to apprehend the gist of his writings except with 
a mind thoroughly alert, an attention awake on all points, 
a spirit open and ready to be kindled by the contact of 
the writers. 

A. C. Swinburne. 



Browning has the sort of insight whose pecuhar 
characteristic it is to recognize everywhere, not only 
forms and facts, but their mutual connections and 
methods of action. This philosophical power which he 
possesses of seizing subtle and exact relations is met with 
in more than one thinker, it is true ; but he is one of the 
first, if not the first, in whom it has reached such develop- 
ment without becoming the dominant faculty which sub- 
ordinates all the others. 

J. Milsand. 

It is because I regard Browning as not merely a poet 
but a prophet, that I think I am entitled to seek in him, as 
in Isaiah or vEschylus, a solution, or a help to the solution, 
of the problems that press upon us when we reflect upon 
man, his place in the world, and his destiny. He has given 
us indirectly, and as a poet gives, a philosophy of life ; he 
has interpreted the world anew in the light of a dominant 
idea : and it will be no little gain if we can make clear to 
ourselves those constitutive principles on which his view 
of the world rests. 

Henry Jones. 

Browning perhaps painted himself, consciously or un- 
consciously, in the poet of his How it strikes a Con- 
temporary^ — the man who has no airs, no picturesque 



Appreciations xxxix 

costume, nothing of the melodramatic, but who notes 
everything about him, remembers everything, and can, 
if needed, tell the tale. This is precisely what Walter 
Savage Landor had foreshadowed, fifty years before, in 
comparing him to Chaucer. 

T. W. HiGGINSON, 



When Browning's enormous influence upon the 
spiritual and mental life of our day — an influence ever 
shaping itself to wise and beautiful issues — shall have 
lost much of its immediate import, there will still surely 
be discerned in his work a formative energy whose re- 
sultant is pure poetic gain. It is as the poet he will Hve : 
not merely as the "novel thinker inverse." Logically, 
his attitude as thinker is unimpressive. 

William Sharp. 



The obscure author of the undoubtedly obscure 
Sordello, who came from nobody knew where, and wrote 
a poem about nobody knew what ; who was vouched for 
by none of the great schools and universities, of which 
Englishmen are wont to make much ; who quoted no 
critic and sought no man's society ; slowly, very slowly, 
won his audience, made his way, earned his fame without 
puffs preliminary in the newspapers, or any other of the 
now well-worn expedients of attracting attention to that 
lamentable object one's self. 

Augustine Birrell. 

The attentive reader of Browning's poetry must soon 
discover how remarkably homogeneous it is in spirit. 
There are many authors, and great authors too, the read- 
ing of whose collected works gives the impression of their 
having "tried their hand" at many things. No such 
impression is derivable from the voluminous poetry of 
Browning. Wide as is its range, one great and homo- 
geneous spirit pervades and animates it all, from the 
earliest to the latest. No other living poet gives so 
decided an assurance of having a burden to deliver. 

Hiram Corson. 

The determination never to sacrifice sense to sound 
is the secret of whatever repels us in Mr. Browning's 
verse, and also of whatever attracts. Wherever in it 



xl Appreciations 

sense keeps company with sound, we have a music far 
deeper than can arise from mere sound, or even from a 
flow of real lyric emotion, which has its only counterpart 
in sound. It is in the idea, and of it. It is the brain 
picture beating itself into words. 

Mrs. Sutherland Orr. 



Scarcely any special bias can be found running 
through Browning's work ; on the contrary an incessant 
change of subject and manner, combined with a strong but 
not overweening individuality, raced, like blood through 
the body, through every vein of his labour. Creative and 
therefore joyful, receptive and therefore thoughtful, at 
one with humanity and therefore loving; aspiring to God 
and believing in God, and therefore steeped to the tips in 
radiant Hope ; at one with the past, passionate with the 
present, and possessing by faith an endless and glorious 
future — this was a life lived on the top of the wave, and 
moving with its motion from youth to manhood, from 
manhood to old age. 

Stopford a. Brooke. 



Browning's chief influence, other than what is purely 
artistic, upon a reader is towards establishing a connec- 
tion between the known order of things in which we live 
and move and that larger order of which it is a part. He 
plays upon the will, summoning it from lethargy to ac- 
tivity. He spiritualizes the passions by showing that 
they tend through what is human towards what is divine. 
He assigns to the intellect a sufficient field for exercise, 
but attaches more value to its efforts than its attainments. 
His faith in an unseen order of things creates a hope 
which persists through the apparent failures of earth. In 
a true sense he may be named the successor of Words- 
worth, not indeed as an artist but as a teacher. 

Edward Dowden. 



Select Poems of Browning 



PAULINE 

(1833) 

A REFLECTION 

Thou wilt remember one warm morn when winter 
Crept aged from the earth, and spring's first breath 
Blew soft from the moist hills ; the black-thorn boughs, 
So dark in the bare wood, when glistening 
In the sunshine were white with coming buds. 
Like the bright side of a sorrow, and the banks 
Had violets opening from sleep like eyes. 
I walked with thee who knew'st not a deep shame 
Lurked beneath smiles and careless words which sought 
To hide it till they wandered and were mute, 10 

As we stood listening on a sunny mound 
To the wind murmuring in the damp copse, 
Like heavy breathings of some hidden thing 
Betrayed by sleep. 

f 
EARLY IDEALS 

As life wanes, all its care and strife and toil 

Seem strangely valueless, while the old trees 

Which grew by our youth's home, the waving mass 

Of climbing plants heavy with bloom and dew, 

The morning swallows with their songs like words, 

All these seem clear and only worth our thoughts : 

So, aught connected with my early life, 

My rude songs or my wild imaginings, 

How I look on them — most distinct amid 

The fever and the stir of after years ! i o 



2 Pauline 

I ne'er had ventured e'en to hope for this, 

Had not the glow I felt at His award, 

Assured me all was not extinct within : 

His whom all honor, whose renown springs up 

Like sunlight which will visit all the world, 

So that e'en they who sneered at him at first, 

Come out to it, as some dark spider crawls 

From his foul nets which some lit torch invades, 

Yet spinning still new films for his retreat. 

Thou didst smile, poet, but can we forgive? 20 

Sun-treader, hfe and light be thine forever I 

Thou art gone from us ; years go by and spring 

Gladdens and the young earth is beautiful, 

Yet thy songs come not, other bards arise, 

But none like thee : they stand, thy majesties, 

Like mighty works which tell some spirit there 

Hath sat regardless of neglect and scorn, 

Till, its long task completed, it hath risen 

And left us, never to return, and all 

Rush in to peer and praise when all in vain. 30 

The air seems bright with thy past presence yet, 

But thou art still for me as thou hast been 

When I have stood with thee as on a throne 

With all thy dim creations gathered round 

Like mountains, and I felt of mould like them. 

And with them creatures of my own were mixed, 

Like things half-lived, catching and giving life. 

But thou art still for me who have adored 

Though single, panting but to hear thy name 

Which I believed a spell to me alone, 40 

Scarce deeming thou wast as a star to men ! 

As one should worship long a sacred spring 

Scarce worth a moth's flitting, which long grasses cross, 

And one small tree embowers droopingly — 

Joying to see some wandering insect won 

To live in its few rushes, or some locust 

To pasture on its boughs, or some wild bird 

Stoop for its freshness from the trackless air : 

And then should find it but the fountain-head, 

Long lost, of some great river washing towns 50 

And towers, and seeing old woods which will live 



Pauline 3 

But by its banks untrod of human foot, 

Which, when the great sun sinks, lie quivering 

In light as some thing lieth half of life 

Before God's foot, waiting a wondrous change ; 

Then girt with rocks which seek to turn or stay 

Its course in vain, for it does ever spread 

Like a sea's arm as it goes rolling on, 

Being the pulse of some great country — so 

Wast thou to me, and art thou to the world ! 60 

And I, perchance, half feel a strange regret 

That I am not what I have been to thee : 

Like a girl one has silently loved long 

In her first loneHness in some retreat, 

When, late emerged, all gaze and glow to view 

Her fresh eyes and soft hair and lips which bloom 

Like a mountain berry : doubtless it is sweet 

To see her thus adored, but there have been 

Moments when all the world was in our praise, 

Sweeter than any pride of after hours. 70 

Yet, sun-treader, all hail ! From my heart's heart 

I bid thee hail ! E'en in my wildest dreams, 

I proudly feel I would have thrown to dust 

The wreaths of fame which seemed o'erhanging me, 

To see thee for a moment as thou art. 



A REVELATION 

I am made up of an intensest life, 

Of a most clear idea of consciousness 

Of self, distinct from all its qualities, 

From all affections, passions, feelings, powers ; 

And thus far it exists, if tracked, in all : 

But linked, in me, to self-supremacy. 

Existing as a centre to all things, 

Most potent to create and rule and call 

Upon all things to minister to it ; 

And to a principle of restlessness 10 

Which would be all, have, see, know, taste, feel, 

all — 
This is myself ; and I should thus have been 
Though gifted lower than the meanest soul. 



4 Pauline 

And of my powers, one springs up to save 

From utter death a soul with such desire 

Confined to clay — of powers the only one 

Which marks me — an imagination which 

Has been a very angel, coming not 

In fitful visions, but beside me ever 

And never failing me. 20 

IMAGINATIVE DELIGHT 

They came to me in my first dawn of life 

Which passed alone with wisest ancient books 

All halo-girt with fancies of my own ; 

And I myself went with the tale — a god 

Wandering after beauty, or a giant 

Standing vast in the sunset — an old hunter 

Talking with gods, or a high-crested chief 

Sailing with troops of friends to Tenedos. 

I tell you, naught has ever been so clear 

As the place, the time, the fashion of those lives : 10 

I had not seen a work of lofty art, 

Nor woman's beauty nor sweet nature's face, 

Yet, I say, never morn broke clear as those 

On the dim clustered isles in the blue sea, 

The deep groves and white temples and wet caves : 

And nothing ever will surprise me now — 

Who stood beside the naked Swift-footed, 

Who bound my forehead with Proserpine's hair. 

A CRISIS 

Oh, let me look back ere I leave forever 

The time which was an hour one fondly waits 

For a fair girl that comes a withered hag ! 

And I was lonely, far from woods and fields, 

And amid dullest sights, who should be loose 

As a stag ; yet I was full of bHss, who lived 

With Plato and who had the key to hfe ; 

And I had dimly shaped my first attempt, 

And many a thought did I build up on thought, 

As the wild bee hangs cell to cell ; in vain, 10 

For I must still advance, no rest for mind. 



Pauline 

'T was in my plan to look on real life, 

The life all new to me ; my theories 

Were firm, so them I left, to look and learn 

Mankind, its cares, hopes, fears, its woes and joys; 

And, as I pondered on their ways, I sought 

How best life's end might be attained — an end 

Comprising every joy. I deeply mused. 

And suddenly without heart-wreck I awoke 
As from a dream : I said, " 'T was beautiful, 
Yet but a dream, and so adieu to it ! " 



RECOVERY 

But whate'er come of it, and though it fade. 

And though ere the cold morning all be gone, 

As it may be ; — though music wait to wile. 

And strange eyes and bright wine lure, laugh like sin 

Which steals back softly on a soul half saved. 

And I the first deny, decry, despise, 

With this avowal, these intents so fair, — 

Still be it all my own, this moment's pride ! 

No less I make an end in perfect joy. 

E'en in my brightest time, a lurking fear lo 

Possessed me : I well knew my weak resolves, 

I felt the witchery that makes mind sleep 

Over its treasure, as one half afraid 

To make his riches definite : but now 

These feelings shall not utterly be lost, 

I shall not know again that nameless care 

Lest, leaving all undone in youth, some new 

And undreamed end reveal itself too late : 

For this song shall remain to tell forever 

That when I lost all hope of such a change, 2c 

Suddenly beauty rose on me again. 

No less I make an end in perfect joy. 

For I, who thus again was visited. 

Shall doubt not many another bliss awaits, 

And, though this weak soul sink and darkness whelm, 

Some little word shall light it, raise aloft. 

To where I clearlier see and better love, 

As I again go o'er the tracts of thought 



6 Pauline 

Like one who has a right, and I shall live 

With poets, calmer, purer still each time, 30 

And beauteous shapes will come for me to seize, 

And unknown secrets will be trusted me 

Which were denied the waverer once ; but now 

I shall be priest and prophet as of old. 

Sun-treader, I believe in God and truth 

And love ; and as one just escaped from death 

Would bind himself in bands of friends to feel 

He hves indeed, so, I would lean on thee ! 

Thou must be ever with me, most in gloom 

If such must come, but chiefly when I die, 40 

For I seem, dying, as one going in the dark 

To fight a giant : but live thou forever, 

And be to all what thou hast been to me ! 

All in whom this wakes pleasant thoughts of me 

Know my last state is happy, free from doubt 

Or touch of fear. Love me and wish me well. 




Robert Browning. 
1835- 



Paracelsus 



PARACELSUS 
(1835) 

PARACELSUS ASPIRES 

See, the great moon ! and ere the mottled owls 

Were wide awake, I was to go. It seems 

You acquiesce at last in all save this — 

If I am like to compass what I seek 

By the untried career I choose ; and then, 

If that career, making but small account 

Of much of life's delight, will yet retain 

Sufficient to sustain my soul : for thus 

I understand these fond fears just expressed. 

And first ; the lore you praise and I neglect, 10 

The labors and the precepts of old time, 

I have not lightly disesteemed. But, friends, 

Truth is within ourselves ; it takes no rise 

From outward things, whate'er you may believe. 

There is an inmost centre in us all, 

Where truth abides in fulness ; and around, 

Wall upon wall, the gross flesh hems it in. 

This perfect, clear perception — which is truth. 

A baffling and perverting carnal mesh 

Binds it, and makes all error : and, to know, 20 

Rather consists in opening out a way 

Whence the imprisoned splendor may escape, 

Than in effecting entry for a light 

Supposed to be without. Watch narrowly 

The demonstration of a truth, its birth. 

And you trace back the effluence to its spring 

And source within us ; where broods radiance vast, 

To be elicited ray by ray, as chance 

Shall favor : chance — for hitherto, your sage 

Even as he knows not how those beams are born, 30 

As little knows he what unlocks their fount : 

And men have oft grown old among their books 

To die case-hardened in their ignorance. 



8 Paracelsus 

Whose careless youth had promised what long years 

Of unremitted labor ne'er performed : 

While, contrary, it has chanced some idle day, 

To autumn loiterers just as fancy-free 

As the midges in the sun, gives birth at last 

To truth — produced mysteriously as cape 

Of cloud grown out of the invisible air. 40 

Hence, may not truth be lodged alike in all, 

The lowest as the highest? some slight film 

The interposing bar which binds a soul 

And makes the idiot, just as makes the sage 

Some film removed, the happy outlet whence 

Truth issues proudly? See this soul of ours ! 

How it strives weakly in the child, is loosed 

In manhood, clogged by sickness, back compelled 

By age and waste, set free at last by death : 

Why is it, flesh enthralls it or enthrones? 50 

What is this flesh we have to penetrate ? 

Oh, not alone when hfe flows still, do truth 

And power emerge, but also when strange chance 

Ruffles its current ; in unused conjuncture, 

When sickness breaks the body — hunger, watching, 

Excess or languor — oftenest death's approach, 

Peril, deep joy or woe. One man shall crawl 

Through life surrounded with all stirring things, 

Unmoved ; and he goes mad : and from the wreck 

Of what he was, by his wild talk alone, 60 

You first collect how great a spirit he hid. 

Therefore, set free the soul alike in all, 

Discovering the true laws by which the flesh 

Accloys the spirit ! We may not be doomed 

To cope with seraphs, but at least the rest 

Shall cope with us. Make no more giants, God, 

But elevate the race at once ! We ask 

To put forth just our strength, our human strength, 

All starting fairly, all equipped alike. 

Gifted alike, all eagle-eyed, true-hearted — 70 

See if we cannot beat thine angels yet ! 

Such is my task. I go to gather this 

The sacred knowledge, here and there dispersed 

About the world, long lost or never found. 



Paracelsus 



APRILE'S SONG 



{Paracelsus hears a voice from within.') 
I hear a voice, perchance I heard 
Long ago, but all too low, 
So that scarce a care it stirred 
If the voice were real or no : 
I heard it in my youth when first 
The waters of my life outburst : 
But, now their stream ebbs faint, I hear 
That voice, still low, but fatal-clear — 
As if all poets, God ever meant 

Should save the world, and therefore lent lo 

Great gifts to, but who, proud, refused 
To do his work, or lightly used 
Those gifts, or failed through weak endeavor, 
So, mourn, cast off by him forever, — 
As if these leaned in airy ring 
To take me ; this the song they sing. 

" Lost, lost ! yet come, 

With our wan troop make thy home. 

Come, come ! for we 

Will not breathe, so much as breathe 20 

Reproach to thee, 

Knowing what thou sink'st beneath. 

So sank we in those old years. 

We who bid thee, come ! thou last 

Who, living yet, hast life o'erpast. 

And altogether we, thy peers. 

Will pardon crave for thee, the last 

Whose trial is done, whose lot is cast 

With those who watch but work no more, 

Who gaze on life but live no more. 30 

Yet we trusted thou shouldst speak 

The message which our hps, too weak, 

Refused to utter, — shouldst redeem 

Our fault : such trust, and all a dream ! 

Yet we chose thee a birthplace. 

Where the richness ran to flowers : 

Couldst not sing one song for grace ? 



lO Paracelsus 

Not make one blossom man's and ours ? 

Must one more recreant to his race 

Die with unexerted powers, 40 

And join us, leaving as he found 

The world, he was to loosen, bound? 

Anguish ! ever and forever ; 

Still beginning, ending never! 

Yet, lost and last one, come ! 

How couldst understand, alas. 

What our pale ghosts strove to say, 

As their shades did glance and pass 

Before thee night and day? 

Thou wast blind as we were dumb : 50 

Once more, therefore, come, O come ! 

How should we clothe, how arm the spirit 

Shall next thy post of life inherit — 

How guard him from thy speedy ruin? 

Tell us of thy sad undoing 

Here, where we sit, ever pursuing 

Our weary task, ever renewing 

Sharp sorrow, far from God who gave 

Our powers, and man they could not save ! " 

APRILE'S REVELATION 

Apr. I would love infinitely, and be loved. 
First : I would carve in stone, or cast in brass. 
The forms of earth. No ancient hunter lifted 
Up to the gods by his renown, no nymph 
Supposed the sweet soul of a woodland tree 
Or sapphirine spirit of a twilight star, 
Should be too hard for me ; no shepherd-king 
Regal for his white locks ; no youth who stands 
Silent and very calm amid the throng. 
His right hand ever hid beneath his robe 10 

Until the tyrant pass ; no lawgiver, 
No swan-soft woman rubbed with lucid oils 
Given by a god for love of her — too hard ! 
Every passion sprung from man, conceived by man, 
Would I express and clothe it in its right form, 
Or blend with others struggling in one form. 
Or show repressed by an ungainly form. 



Paracelsus 1 1 

Oh, if you marvelled at some mighty spirit 

With a fit frame to execute its will — 

Even unconsciously to work its will — 20 

You should be moved no less beside some strong 

Rare spirit, fettered to a stubborn body. 

Endeavoring to subdue it and inform it 

With its own splendor ! All this I would do : 

And I would say, this done, " His sprites created, 

God grants to each a sphere to be its world, 

Appointed with the various objects needed 

To satisfy its own peculiar want ; 

So, I create a world for these my shapes 

Fit to sustain their beauty and their strength ! " 30 

And, at the word, I would contrive and paint 

Woods, valleys, rocks and plains, dells, sands and 

wastes, 
Lakes which, when morn breaks on their quivering 

bed. 
Blaze like a wyvern flying round the sun. 
And ocean isles so small, the dog-fish tracking 
A dead whale, who should find them, would swim 

thrice 
Around them, and fare onward — all to hold 
The offspring of my brain. Nor these alone : 
Bronze labyrinth, palace, pyramid and crypt, 
Baths, galleries, courts, temples and terraces, 40 

Marts, theatres, and wharfs — all filled with men, 
Men everywhere ! And this performed in turn, 
When those who looked on, pined to hear the hopes 
And fears and hates and loves which moved the 

crowd, 
I would throw down the pencil as the chisel, 
And I would speak ; no thought which ever stirred 
A human breast should be untold ; all passions. 
All soft emotions, from the turbulent stir 
Within a heart fed with desires like mine, 
To the last comfort shutting the tired lids 50 

Of him who sleeps the sultry noon away 
Beneath the tent-tree by the wayside well : 
And this in language as the need should be, 
Now poured at once forth in a burning flow. 
Now piled up in a grand array of words. 



1 2 Paracelsus 

This done, to perfect and consummate all, 

Even as a luminous haze links star to star, 

I would supply all chasms with music, breathing 

Mysterious motions of the soul, no way 

To be defined save in strange melodies. 60 

Last, having thus revealed all I could love, 

Having received all love bestowed on it, 

I would die : preserving so throughout my course 

God full on me, as I was full on men : 

He would approve my prayer, " I have gone through 

The loveliness of life ; create for me 

If not for men, or take me to thyself, 

Eternal, infinite love ! " 



SONG 

Heap cassia, sandal-buds, and stripes 

Of labdanum, and aloe-balls, 

Smeared with dull nard an Indian wipes 
From out her hair : such balsam falls 
Down sea-side mountain pedestals. 
From tree-tops where tired winds are fain, 
Spent with the vast and howling main. 
To treasure half their island-gain 

And strew faint sweetness from some old 

Egyptian's fine worm-eaten shroud 
Which breaks to dust when once unrolled ; 

Or shredded perfume, like a cloud 
From closet long to quiet vowed. 
With mothed and dropping arras hung, 
Mouldering her lute and books among, 
As when a queen, long dead, was young. 



SONG 



Thus the Mayne glideth 

Where my Love abideth. 

Sleep 's no softer : it proceeds 

On through lawns, on through meads, 

On and on, whate'er befall, 



Paracelsus 1 3 



Meandering and musical, 
Though the niggard pasturage 
Bears not on it shaven ledge 
Aught but weeds and waving grasses 
To view the river as it passes, 
Save here and there a scanty patch 
Of primroses too faint to catch 
A weary bee. 

And scarce it pushes 
Its gentle way through strangling rushes 
Where the glossy kingfisher 
Flutters when noon-heats are near, 
Glad the shelving banks to shun, 
Red and steaming in the sun, 
Where the shrew-mouse with pale throat 
Burrows, and the speckled stoat ; 
Where the quick sandpipers flit 
In and out the marl and grit 
That seems to breed them, brown as they ; 
Naught disturbs its quiet way. 
Save some lazy stork that springs, 
Trailing it with legs and wings, 
Whom the shy fox from the hill 
Rouses, creep he ne'er so still. 



PARACELSUS ATTAINS 

Par. Yes, it was in me ; I was born for it — 
I, Paracelsus : it was mine by right. 
Doubtless a searching and impetuous soul 
Might learn from its own motions that some task 
Like this awaited it about the world ; 
Might seek somewhere in this blank life of ours 
For fit delights to stay its longings vast ; 
And, grappling Nature, so prevail on her 
To fill the creature full she dared thus frame 
Hungry for joy ; and, bravely tyrannous, 
Grow in demand, still craving more and more, 
And make each joy conceded prove a pledge 
Of other joy to follow — bating naught 
Of its desires, still seizing fresh pretence 



1 4 Paracelsus 

To turn the knowledge and the rapture wrung 

As an extreme, last boon, from destiny, 

Into occasion for new covetings, 

New strifes, new triumphs : doubtless a strong soul, 

Alone, unaided might attain to this, 

So glorious is our nature, so august 20 

Man's inborn, uninstructed impulses, 

His naked spirit so majestical ! 

But this was born in me ; I was made so ; 

Thus much time saved : the feverish appetites, 

The tumult of unproved desire, the unaimed. 

Uncertain yearnings, aspirations blind, 

Distrust, mistake, and all that ends in tears 

Were saved me ; thus I entered on my course. 

You may be sure I was not all exempt 

From human trouble ; just so much of doubt 30 

As bade me plant a surer foot upon 

The sun-road, kept my eye unruined 'mid 

The fierce and flashing splendor, set my heart 

Trembling so much as warned me I stood there 

On sufferance — not to idly gaze, but cast 

Light on a darkling race ; save for that doubt, 

I stood at first where all aspire at last 

To stand : the secret of the world was mine. 

I knew, I felt, (perception unexpressed, 

Uncomprehended by our narrow thought, 40 

But somehow felt and known in every shift 

And change in the spirit, — nay, in every pore 

Of the body, even,) — what God is, what we are, 

What life is — how God tastes an infinite joy 

In infinite ways — one everlasting bliss, 

From whom all being emanates, all power 

Proceeds ; in whom is life for evermore, 

Yet whom existence in its lowest form 

Includes; where dwells enjoyment there is He! 

With still a flying point of bliss remote, 50 

A happiness in store afar, a sphere 

Of distant glory in full view ; thus climbs 

Pleasure its heights forever and forever. 

The centre-fire heaves underneath the earth, 

And the earth changes like a human face ; 

The molten ore bursts up among the rocks, 



Paracelsus 1 5 

Winds into the stone's heart, outbranches bright 

In hidden mines, spots barren river-beds, 

Crumbles into fine sand where sunbeams bask — 

God joys therein. The wroth sea's waves are edged 60 

With foam, white as the bitten hp of hate, 

When, in the soHtary waste, strange groups 

Of young volcanos come up, cyclops-like, 

Staring together with their eyes on flame — 

God tastes a pleasure in their uncouth pride. 

Then all is still ; earth is a wintry clod : 

But spring-wind, like a dancing psaltress, passes 

Over its breast to waken it, rare verdure 

Buds tenderly upon rough banks, between 

The withered tree-roots and the cracks of frost, 70 

Like a smile striving with a wrinkled face ; 

The grass grows bright, the boughs are swoln with 

blooms 
Like chrysalids impatient for the air, 
The shining dorrs are busy, beetles run 
Along the furrows, ants make their ado ; 
Above, birds fly in merry flocks, the lark 
Soars up and up, shivering for very joy ; 
Afar the ocean sleeps ; white fishing-gulls 
Flit where the strand is purple with its tribe 
Of nested limpets ; savage creatures seek 80 

Their loves in wood and plain — and God renews 
His ancient rapture. Thus he dwells in all, 
From life's minute beginnings, up at last 
To man — the consummation of this scheme 
Of being, the completion of this sphere 
Of life : whose attributes had here and there 
Been scattered o'er the visible world before, 
Asking to be combined, dim fragments meant 
To be united in some wondrous whole, 
Liiperfect qualities throughout creation, go 

Suggesting some one creature yet to make. 
Some point where all those scattered rays should meet 
Convergent in the faculties of man. 
Power — neither put forth blindly, nor controlled 
Calmly by perfect knowledge ; to be used 
At risk, inspired or checked by hope and fear : 
Knowledge — not intuition, but the slow, 



1 6 Paracelsus 

Uncertain fruit of an enhancing toil, 
Strengthened by love : love — not serenely pure, 
But strong from weakness, like a chance-sown 

plant loo 

Which, cast on stubborn soil, puts forth changed 

buds 
And softer stains, unknown in happier climes ; 
Love which endures and doubts and is oppressed 
And cherished, suffering much and much sustained, 
And blind, oft-failing, yet beheving love, 
A half-enlightened, often-checkered trust : — 
Hints and previsions of which faculties 
Are strewn confusedly everywhere about 
The inferior natures, and all lead up higher, 
All shape out dimly the superior race, no 

The heir of hopes too fair to turn out false. 
And man appears at last. So far the seal 
Is put on life ; one stage of being complete, 
One scheme wound up : and from the grand result 
A supplementary reflux of light 
Illustrates all the inferior grades, explains 
Each back step in the circle. Not alone 
For their possessor dawn those qualities, 
But the new glory mixes with the heaven 
And earth ; man, once descried, imprints forever 120 
His presence on all lifeless things : the winds 
Are henceforth voices, wailing or a shout, 
A querulous mutter or a quick gay laugh, 
Never a senseless gust now man is born. 
The herded pines commune and have deep thoughts, 
A secret they assemble to discuss 
When the sun drops behind their trunks, which glare 
Like grates of hell : the peerless cup afloat 
Of the lake-lily is an urn, some nymph 
Swims bearing high above her head : no bird 130 

Whistles unseen, but through the gaps above 
That let light in upon the gloomy woods, 
A shape peeps from the breezy forest-top. 
Arch with small puckered mouth and mocking eye. 
The morn has enterprise, deep quiet droops 
With evening, triumph takes the sunset hour. 
Voluptuous transport ripens with the corn 



Paracelsus 1 7 

Beneath a warm moon like a happy face : 

— And this to fill us with regard for man, 

With apprehension of his passing worth, 140 

Desire to work his proper nature out, 

And ascertain his rank and final place, 

For these things tend still upward, progress is 

The law of life, man is not Man as yet. 

Nor shall I deem his object served, his end 

Attained, his genuine strength put fairly forth, 

While only here and there a star dispels 

The darkness, here and there a towering mind 

O'erlooks its prostrate fellows : when the host 

Is out at once to the despair of night, 150 

When all mankind alike is perfected, 

Equal in full-blown powers — then, not till then, 

I say, begins man's general infancy. 

For wherefore make account of feverish starts 

Of restless members of a dormant whole. 

Impatient nerves which quiver while the body 

Slumbers as in a grave? Oh, long ago 

The brow was twitched, the tremulous lids astir, 

The peaceful mouth disturbed ; half uttered speech 

Ruffled the hp, and then the teeth were set, 160 

The breath drawn sharp, the strong right-hand clenched 

stronger, 
As it would pluck a lion by the jaw ; 
The glorious creature laughed out even in sleep ! 
But when full roused, each giant-Hmb awake. 
Each sinew strung, the great heart pulsing fast, 
He shall start up and stand on his own earth, 
Then shall his long triumphant march begin . . . 
The power I sought for man, seemed God's. 
In this conjuncture, as I prayed to die, 
A strange adventure made me know, one sin 170 

Had spotted my career from its uprise ; 
I saw Aprile — my Aprile there ! 
And as the poor melodious wretch disburdened 
His heart, and moaned his weakness in my ear, 
I learned my own deep error ; love's undoing 
Taught me the worth of love in man's estate, 
And what proportion love should hold with power 
In his right constitution ; love preceding 



1 8 Paracelsus 

Power, and with much power, always much more 

love ; 
Love still too straightened in his present means, i8o 
And earnest for new power to set love free. 
I learned this, and supposed the whole was learned : 
And thus, when men received with stupid wonder 
My first revealings, would have worshipped me, 
And I despised and loathed their proffered praise — ■ 
When, with awakened eyes, they took revenge 
For past credulity in casting shame 
On my real knowledge, and I hated them — 
It was not strange I saw no good in man, 
To overbalance all the wear and waste 190 

Of faculties, displayed in vain, but born 
To prosper in some better sphere : and why ? 
In my own heart love had not been made wise 
To trace love's faint beginnings in mankind, 
To know even hate is but a mask of love's, 
To see a good in evil, and a hope 
In ill success ; to sympathize, be proud 
Of their half-reasons, faint aspirings, dim 
Struggles for truth, their poorest fallacies, 
Their prejudice and fears and cares and doubts ; 200 
All with a touch of nobleness, despite 
Their error, upward tending all, though weak, 
Like plants in mines which never saw the sun, 
But dream of him, and guess where he may be, 
And do their best to climb and get to him. 
All this I knew not, and I failed. Let men 
Regard me, and the poet dead long ago 
Who loved too rashly ; and shape forth a third 
And better-tempered spirit, warned by both : 
As from the over-radiant star too mad 210 

To drink the life-springs, beamless thence itself — 
And the dark orb which borders the abyss. 
Ingulfed in icy night, — might have its course, 
A temperate and equidistant world. 
Meanwhile, I have done well, though not all well. 
As yet men cannot do without contempt ; 
'T is for their good, and therefore fit awhile 
That they reject the weak, and scorn the false. 
Rather than praise the strong and true, in me : 



Paracelsus 19 

But after, they will know me. If I stoop 220 

Into a dark tremendous sea of cloud, 
It is but for a time ; I press God's lamp 
Close to my breast ; its splendor, soon or late, 
Will pierce the gloom : I shall emerge one day. 
You understand me? I have said enough 1 

Festiis. Now die, dear Aureole ! 

Paracelsus. Festus, let my hand — 

This hand, lie in your own, my own true friend ! 
Aprile ! Hand in hand with you, Aprile 1 

Festus. And this was Paracelsus ! 



20 Pippa Passes 



PIPPA PASSES 

(1841) 

NEW YEAR'S HYMN 

All service ranks the same with God : 

If now, as formerly he trod 

Paradise, his presence fills 

Our earth, each only as God wills 

Can work — God's puppets, best and worst, 

'Are we ; there is no last nor first. 

Say not " a small event ! " Why " small " ? 
Costs it more pain that this, ye call 
A "great event," should come to pass, 
Than that? Untwine me from the mass 
Of deeds which make up life, one deed 
Power shall fall short in or exceed ! 



SONG 

The year 's at the spring, 
And day 's at the morn ; 
Morning 's at seven ; 
The hillside 's dew-pearled 
The lark 's on the wing ; 
The snail 's on the thorn : 
God 's in his heaven — 
All 's right with the world ! 



SONG 

Give her but a least excuse to love me ! 
When — where — 

How — can this arm establish her above me, 
If fortune fixed her as my lady there, 
There already, to eternally reprove me? 



Pippa Passes 21 

(" Hist ! " — said Kate the Queen ; 
But " Oh ! " cried the maiden, binding her tresses, 
" 'T is only a page that carols unseen, 
Crumbling your hounds their messes ! ") 

Is she wronged? — To the rescue of her honor, 10 

My heart ! 

Is she poor? — What costs it to be styled a donor? 

Merely an earth to cleave, a sea to part. 

But that fortune should have thrust all this upon her ! 

(" Nay, list ! " — bade Kate the Queen ; 

And still cried the maiden, binding her tresses, 

" 'T is only a page that carols unseen, 

Fitting your hawks their jesses ! ") 



SONG 

A king lived long ago, 

In the morning of the world, 

When earth was nigher heaven than now ; 

And the king's locks curled. 

Disparting o'er a forehead full 

As the milk-white space 'twixt horn and horn 

Of some sacrificial bull — 

Only calm as a babe new-born : 

For he was got to a sleepy mood, 

So safe from all decrepitude, 10 

Age with its bane so sure gone by 

(The gods so loved him while he dreamed) 

That, having lived thus long, there seemed 

No need the king should ever die. 

Among the rocks his city was : 

Before his palace, in the sun, 

He sat to see his people pass, 

And judge them every one 

From its threshold of smooth stone. 

They haled him many a valley-thief 20 

Caught in the sheep-pens, robber-chief 

Swarthy and shameless, beggar-cheat, 

Spy-prowler, or rough pirate found 



22 Pippa Passes 

On the sea-sand left aground ; 

And sometimes clung about his feet, 

With bleeding lip and burning cheek, 

A woman, bitterest wrong to speak 

Of one with sullen thickset brows : 

And sometimes from the prison-house 

The angry priests a pale wretch brought, 30 

Who through some chink had pushed and pressed 

On knees and elbows, belly and breast, 

Worm-like into the temple, — caught 

He was by the very god 

Who ever in the darkness strode 

Backward and forward, keeping watch 

O'er his brazen bowls, such rogues to catch ! 

These, all and every one. 

The king judged, sitting in the sun. 

His councillors, on left and right, 40 

Looked anxious up, — but no surprise 
Disturbed the king's old smiling eyes 
Where the very blue had turned to white. 
'T is said, a Python scared one day 
The breathless city, till he came. 
With forky tone and eyes on flame. 
Where the old king sat to judge alway ; 
But when he saw the sweepy hair 
Girt with a crown of berries rare, 
Which the god will hardly give to wear 50 

To the maiden who singeth, dancing bare 
In the altar-smoke by the pine-torch lights, 
At his wondrous forest rites, — 
Seeing this, he did not dare 
Approach that threshold in the sun, 
Assault the old king smiling there- 
Such grace had kings when the world begun ! 

SONG 

Over-head the tree-tops meet. 
Flowers and grass spring 'neath one's feet ; 
There was naught above me, naught below, 
My childhood had not learned to know : 



Pippa Passes 23 

For, what are the voices of birds 

— Ay, and of beasts, — but words, our words, 

Only so much more sweet? 

The knowledge of that with my life begun. 

But I had so near made out the sun, 

And counted your stars, the seven and one, 

Like the fingers of my hand : 

Nay, I could all but understand 

Wherefore through heaven the white moon ranges ; 

And just when out of her soft fifty changes 

No unfamiliar face might overlook me — 

Suddenly God took me. 



THE DAY'S CLOSE AT ASOLO 

Oh, what a drear, dark close to my poor day ! 

How could that red sun drop in that black cloud ? 

Ah, Pippa, morning's rule is moved away, 

Dispensed with, never more to be allowed! 

Day's turn is over, now arrives the night's. 

Oh lark, be day's apostle 

To mavis, merle and throstle, 

Bid them their betters jostle 

From day and its delights ! 

But at night, brother howlet, over the woods, 10 

Toll the world to thy chantry ; 

Sing to the bats' sleek sisterhoods 

Full complines with gallantry : 

Then, owls and bats, 

Cowls and twats, 

Monks and nuns, in a cloister's moods. 

Adjourn to the oak-stump pantry ! 

\_After she has begun to tmdress herself. 
Now, one thing I should like to really know : 
How near I ever might approach all these 
I only fancied being, this long day : 20 

— Approach, I mean, so as to touch them, so 
As to . . .in some way . . . move them — if you 

please. 
Do good or evil to them some slight way. 
For instance, if I wind 
Silk to-morrow, my silk may bind 



24 Pippa Passes 

\Sitting on the bedside. 
And border Ottima's cloak's hem. 
Ah me, and my important part with them, 
This morning's hymn half promised when I rose ! 
True in some sense or other, I suppose. 

\As she lies down. 
God bless me ! I can pray no more to-night. 30 
No doubt, some way or other, hymns say right 

All service ranks the same with God — 
With God, whose puppets, best and worst, 
Are we ; there is no last nor first. 

\She sleeps. 



Cavalier Tunes 



25 



CAVALIER TUNES 

(1842) 

I. MARCHING ALONG 

Kentish Sir Byng stood for his King, 

Bidding the crop-headed Parhament swing : 

And, pressing a troop unable to stoop 

And see the rogues flourish and honest folk droop, 

Marched them along, fifty-score strong. 

Great-hearted gentlemen, singing this song. 

God for King Charles ! Pym and such carles 

To the Devil that prompts 'em their treasonous paries ! 

Cavaliers, up 1 Lips from the cup, 

Hands from the pasty, nor bite take, nor sup, 

Till you 're — 

Chorus. — Marching along, fifty-score strong, 

Great-hearted gentlemen, singing this 
song! 

Hampden to hell, and his obsequies' knell 
Serve Hazelrig, Fiennes, and young Harry, as well ! 
England, good cheer ! Rupert is near ! 
Kentish and loyalists, keep we not here, 
Cho. — Marching along, fifty-score strong, 

Great-hearted gentlemen, singing this song ? 

Then, God for King Charles ! Pym and his snarls 
To the Devil that pricks on such pestilent carles ! 
Hold by the right, you double your might ; 
So, onward to Nottingham, fresh for the fight, 
Cho. — March we along, fifty-score strong, 

Great-hearted gentlemen, singing this song ! 



26 Cavalier Tunes 



II. GIVE A ROUSE 

King Charles, and who '11 do him right now ? 
King Charles, and who 's ripe for fight now ? 
Give a rouse : here 's, in hell's despite now, 
King Charles ! 

Who gave me the goods that went since ? 
Who raised me the house that sank once ? 
Who helped me to gold I spent since ? 
Who found me in wine you drank once ? 

Cho. — King Charles, and who '11 do him right now ? 

King Charles, and who 's ripe for fight now ? 

Give a rouse : here 's, in hell's despite now, 

King Charles ! 

To whom used my boy George quaff else, 
By the old fool's side that begot him ? 
For whom did he cheer and laugh else, 
While Noll's damned troopers shot him ? 

Cho. — King Charles, and who '11 do him right now ? 

King Charles, and who 's ripe for fight now? 

Give a rouse : here 's, in hell's despite now, 

King Charles! 



III. BOOT AND SADDLE 

Boot, saddle, to horse, and away ! 
Rescue my castle before the hot day 
Brightens to blue from its silvery gray. 
Cho. — Boot, saddle, to horse, and away ! 

Ride past the suburbs, asleep as you 'd say ; 
Many 's the friend there, will listen and pray 
" God's luck to gallants that strike up the lay — • 
Cho. — Boot, saddle, to horse, and away ! " 

Forty miles off, like a roebuck at bay, 
Flouts Castle Brancepeth the Roundheads' array 
Who laughs, " Good fellows ere this, by my fay, 
Cho. — Bootj saddle, to horse, and away ! " 



My Last Duchess 27 

Who ? My wife Gertrude ; that, honest and gay, 
Laughs when you talk of surrendering, " Nay ! 
I *ve better counsellors ; what counsel they ? 
Cho. — Boot, saddle, to horse, and away ! " 



MY LAST DUCHESS 

(1842) 

FERRARA 

That 's my last Duchess painted on the wall, 

Looking as if she were alive. I call 

That piece a wonder, now : Fra Pandolf's hands 

Worked busily a day, and there she stands. 

Will 't please you sit and look at her ? I said 

"Fra Pandolf" by design, for never read 

Strangers like you that pictured countenance, 

The depth and passion of its earnest glance. 

But to myself they turned (since none puts by 

The curtain I have drawn for you, but I) 10 

And seemed as they would ask me, if they durst, 

How such a glance came there ; so, not the first 

Are you to turn and ask thus. Sir, 't was not 

Her husband's presence only, called that spot 

Of joy into the Duchess' cheek : perhaps 

Frk Pandolf chanced to say, " Her mantle laps 

Over my lady's wrist too much," or " Paint 

Must never hope to reproduce the faint 

Half-flush that dies along her throat : " such stuff 

Was courtesy, she thought, and cause enough 20 

For calling up that spot of joy. She had ~ ., 

A heart — how shall I say ? — too soon made glad. 

Too easily impressed : she liked whate'er 

She looked on, and her looks went everywhere. ,.-- ' 

Sir, 't was all one I My favor at her breast, 

The dropping of the daylight in the West, 

The bough of cherries some officious fool 

Broke in the orchard for her, the white mule 

She rode with round the terrace — all and each 

Would draw from her alike the approving speech, 30 



28 Incident of the French Camp 

Or blush, at least. She thanked men, — good ! but 

thanked 
Somehow — I know not how — as if she ranked 
My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name 
With anybody's gift. Who 'd stoop to blame 
.This sort of trifling? Even had you skill 
In speech — (which I have not) — to make your will 
Quite clear to such an one, and say, " Just this 
Or that in you disgusts me ; here you miss, 
Or there exceed the mark " — and if she let 
Herself be lessoned so, nor plainly set 40 

Her wits to yours, forsooth, and made excuse, 
— E'en then would be some stooping ; and I choose 
Never to stoop. Oh sir, she smiled, no doubt, 
Whene'er I passed her ; but who passed without 
Much the same smile ? This grew; I gave commands ; 
Then all smiles stopped together. There she stands 
As if alive. Will 't please you rise ? We '11 meet 
The company below, then. I repeat. 
The Count your master's known munificence 
Is ample warrant that no just pretence 50 

Of mine for dowry will be disallowed ; 
Though his fair daughter's self, as I avowed 
At starting, is my object. Nay, we '11 go 
Together down, sir. Notice Neptune, though. 
Taming a sea-horse, thought a rarity, 
Which Glaus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me ! 



INCIDENT OF THE FRENCH CAMP 
(1842) 

You know, we French stormed Ratisbon : 

A mile or so away. 
On a little mound, Napoleon 

Stood on our storming-day ; 
With neck out-thrust, you fancy how, 

Legs wide, arms locked behind, 
As if to balance the prone brow 

Oppressive with its mind. 



Incident of the French Camp 29 

Just as perhaps he mused, " My plans 

That soar, to earth may fall, 10 

Let once my army-leader Lannes 

Waver at yonder wall," — 
Out 'twixt the battery-smokes there flew 

A rider, bound on bound 
Full-galloping ; nor bridle drew 

Until he reached the mound. 

Then off there flung in smiling joy, 

And held himself erect 
By just his horse's mane, a boy : 

You hardly could suspect — 20 

(So tight he kept his lips compressed, 

Scarce any blood came through) 
You looked twice ere you saw his breast 

Was all but shot in two. 

'* Well," cried he, '' Emperor, by God's grace 

We 've got you Ratisbon ! 
The Marshal 's in the market-place, 

And you '11 be there anon 
To see your flag-bird flap his vans 

Where I, to heart's desire, 30 

Perched him ! " The chief's eye flashed ; his plans 

Soar'd up again like fire. 

The chief's eye flashed ; but presently 

Softened itself, as sheathes 
A film the mother-eagle's eye 

When her bruised eaglet breathes ; 
" You 're wounded ! " " Nay," the soldier's pride 

Touched to the quick, he said : 
"I 'm killed, Sire ! " And, his chief beside, 

Smiling the boy fell dead. 40 



30 Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister 



SOLILOQUY OF THE SPANISH 
CLOISTER 

(1842) 

Gr-r-r — there, go, my heart's abhorrence ! 

Water your damned flower-pots, do ! 
If hate killed men, Brother Lawrence, 

God's blood, would not mine kill you ! 
What? your myrtle-bush wants trimming? 

Oh, that rose has prior claims — 
Needs its leaden vase filled brimming? 

Hell dry you up with its flames ! 

At the meal we sit together : 

Salve tibi! I must hear 10 

Wise talk of the kind of weather, 

Sort of season, time of year : 
Not a plenteous cork-erop : scarcely 

Dare we hope oak-galls, I doubt : 
What 'j the Latin 7iame for ^^ parsley " 

What's the Greek name for Swine's Snout? 

Whew ! We '11 have our platter burnished, 

Laid with care on our own shelf ! 
With a fire-new spoon we 're furnished. 

And a goblet for ourself, 20 

Rinsed like something sacrificial 

Ere 't is fit to touch our chaps — 
Marked with L for our initial ! 

(He-he ! There his lily snaps !) 

Saint, forsooth ! While brown Dolores 

Squats outside the Convent bank 
With Sanchicha, teUing stories, 

Steeping tresses in the tank, 
Blue-black, lustrous, thick like horsehairs, 

— Can't I see his dead eye glow 30 

Bright as 't were a Barbary corsair's ? 

(That is, if he 'd let it show !) 



Soliloqity of the Spanish Cloister 31 

When he finishes refection, 

Knife and fork he never lays 
Cross-wise, to my recollection. 

As do I, in Jesu's praise. 
I the Trinity illustrate, 

Drinking watered orange-pulp — 
In three sips the Arian frustrate ; 

While he drains his at one gulp. 40 

Oh, those melons ! If he 's able 

We 're to have a feast ! so nice ! 
One goes to the Abbot's table, 

All of us get each a slice. 
How go on your flowers ? None double ? 

Not one fruit-sort can you spy? 
Strange ! — And I, too, at such trouble 

Keep them close-nipped on the sly ! 

There 's a great text in Galatians, 

Once you trip on it, entails 50 

Twenty-nine distinct damnations, 

One sure, if another fails : 
If I trip him just a-dying, 

Sure of heaven as sure can be, 
Spin him round and send him flying 

Off to hell, a Manichee ? 

Or, my scrofulous French novel 

On gray paper with blunt type ! 
Simply glance at it, you grovel 

Hand and foot in Belial's gripe : 60 

If I double down its pages 

At the woeful sixteenth print, 
When he gathers his greengages. 

Ope a sieve and slip it in 't? 

Or, there 's Satan ! — one might venture 

Pledge one's soul to him, yet leave 
Such a flaw in the indenture 

As he 'd miss till, past retrieve, 
Blasted lay that rose-acacia 

We 're so proud of ! Hy, Zy, Hine ... 70 

'St, there 's Vespers ! Plena gratia, 

Ave, Virgo ! Gr-r-r — you swine I 



32 Waring 



WARING 

(1842) 

I 

What 's become of Waring 
Since he gave us all the slip, 
Chose land-travel or seafaring, 
Boots and chest or staff and scrip, 
Rather than pace up and down 
Any longer London town? 

Who 'd have guessed it from his lip 

Or his brow's accustomed bearing, 

On the night he thus took ship 

Or started landward? — little caring 10 

For us, it seems, who supped together 

(Friends of his, too, I remember) 

And walked home through the merry weather. 

The snowiest in all December. 

I left his arm that night myself 

For what 's-his-name's, the new prose-poet 

Who wrote the book there, on the shelf — 

How, forsooth, was I to know it 

If Waring meant to glide away 

Like a ghost at break of day? 20 

Never looked he half so gay ! 

He was prouder than the devil : 

How he must have cursed our revel ! 

Ay, and many other meetings, 

Indoor visits, outdoor greetings, 

As up and down he paced this London, 

With no work done, but great works undone, 

Where scarce twenty knew his name. 

Why not, then, have earlier spoken. 

Written, bustled ? Who 's to blame 30 

If your silence kept unbroken ? 



Waring 33 

" True, but there were sundry jottings, 

Stray-leaves, fragments, blurs and blottings, 

Certain first steps were achieved 

Already which " — (is that your meaning?) 

" Had well borne out who e'er believed 

In more to come ! " But who goes gleaning 

Hedgeside chance-blades, while, full-sheaved, 

Stand cornfields by him ? Pride, o'erweening 

Pride alone, puts forth such claims 40 

O'er the day's distinguished names. 



Meantime, how much I loved him, 

I find out now I 've lost him. 

I who cared not if I moved him, 

Who could so carelessly accost him, 

Henceforth never shall get free 

Of his ghostly company. 

His eyes that just a little wink 

As deep I go into the merit 

Of this and that distinguished spirit — 50 

His cheeks' raised color, soon to sink, 

As long I dwell on some stupendous 

And tremendous (Heaven defend us 1) 

Monstr'-inform'-ingens-horrend-ous 

Demoniaco-seraphic 

Penman's latest piece of graphic. 

Nay, my very wrist grows warm 

With his dragging weight of arm. 

E'en so, swimmingly appears, 

Through one's after-supper musings, 60 

Some lost lady of old years 

With her beauteous vain endeavor 

And goodness unrepaid as ever ; 

The face, accustomed to refusings. 

We, puppies that we were . . . Oh never 

Surely, nice of conscience, scrupled 

Being aught like false, forsooth, to ? 

Telling aught but honest truth to ? 

What a sin, had we centupled 

Its possessor's grace and sweetness ! 70 

No ! she heard in its completeness 



34 Waring 

Truth, for truth 's a weighty matter, 
And truth, at issue, we can't flatter ! 
Well, 'tis done with ; she 's exempt 
From damning us through such a sally ; 
And so she glides, as down a valley, 
Taking up with her contempt, 
Past our reach ; and in, the flowers 
Shut her unregarded hours. 

Oh, could I have him back once more, 80 

This Waring, but one half-day more ! 

Back, with the quiet face of yore, 

So hungry for acknowledgment 

Like mine ! I 'd fool him to his bent. 

Feed, should not he, to heart's content? 

I 'd say, " to only have conceived, 

Planned your great works, apart from progress. 

Surpasses little works achieved ! " 

I 'd lie so, I should be believed, 

I 'd make such havoc of the claims 90 

Of the day's distinguished names 

To feast him with, as feasts an ogress 

Her feverish sharp-toothed gold-crowned child ! 

Or as one feasts a creature rarely 

Captured here, unreconciled 

To capture ; and completely gives 

Its pettish humors license, barely 

Requiring that it lives. 

Ichabod, Ichabod, 

The glory is departed ! 100 

Travels Waring East away ? 

Who, of knowledge, by hearsay. 

Reports a man up started 

Somewhere as a god. 

Hordes grown European-hearted, 

Millions of the wild made tame 

On a sudden at his fame ? 

In Vishnu-land what Avatar? 

Or who in Moscow, toward the Czar, 

With the demurest of footfalls no 



Waring 35 

Over the Kremlin's pavement, bright 

With serpentine and syenite, 

Steps, with five other Generals 

That simultaneously take snuff. 

For each to have pretext enough 

And kerchiefvvise unfold his sash 

Which, softness' self, is yet the stuff 

To hold fast where a steel chain snaps, 

And leave the grand white neck no gash? 

Waring in Moscow, to those rough 120 

Cold northern natures born perhaps, 

Like the lambwhite maiden dear 

From the circle of mute kings 

Unable to repress the tear, 

Each as his sceptre down he flings, 

To Dian's fame at Taurica, 

Where now, a captive priestess, she alway 

Mingles her tender grave Hellenic speech 

With theirs, tuned to the hailstone-beaten beach, 

As pours some pigeon, from the myrrhy lands 130 

Rapt by the whijrlblast to fierce Scythian strands 

Where breed the swallows, her melodious cry 

Amid their barbarous twitter ! 

In Russia ? Never ! Spain were fitter ! 

Ay, most likely 't is in Spain 

That we and Waring meet again 

Now, while he turns down that cool narrow lane 

Into the blackness, out of grave Madrid 

All fire and shine, abrupt as when there 's slid 

Its stiff gold blazing pall 140 

From some black coffin-lid. 

Or, best of all, 

I love to think 

The leaving us was just a feint ; 

Back here to London did he slink, 

And now works on without a wink 

Of sleep, and we are on the brink 

Of something great in fresco-paint : 

Some garret's ceiling, walls and floor, 

Up and down and o'er and o'er, . 150 

He splashes, as none splashed before 

Since great Caldara Polidore ; 



36 Waring 

Or Music means this land of ours 

Some favor yet, to pity won 

By Purcell from his Rosy Bowers, — 

"Give me my so-long promised son, 

Let Waring end what I begun ! " 

Then down he creeps and out he steals 

Only when the night conceals 

His face; in Kent 'tis cherry-time, 160 

Or hops are picking : or at prime 

Of March he wanders as, too happy, 

Years ago when he was young, 

Some mild eve when woods grew sappy 

And the early moths had sprung 

To life from many a trembling sheath 

Woven the warm boughs beneath ; 

While small birds said to themselves 

What should soon be actual song, 

And young gnats, by tens and twelves, 1 70 

Made as if they were the throng 

That crowd around and carry aloft 

The sound they have nursed, so sweet and pure, 

Out of a myriad noises soft, 

Into a tone that can endure 

Amid the noise of a July noon. 

When all God's creatures crave their boon, 

All at once and all in tune, 

And get it, happy as Waring then, 

Having first within his ken 180 

What a man might do with men : 

And far too glad, in the even-glow. 

To mix with the world he meant to take 

Into his hand, he told you, so — - 

And out of it his world to make, 

To contract and to expand 

As he shut or oped his hand. 

O Waring, what 's to really be ? 

A clear stage and a crowd to see ! 

Some Garrick, say, out shall not he 190 

The heart of Hamlet's mystery pluck ? 

Or, where most unclean beasts are rife, 

Some Junius — am I right? — shall tuck 

His sleeve, and forth with flaying-knife ! 



Waring 2i7 

Some Chatterton shall have the luck 

Of calling Rowley into life ! 

Some one shall somehow run a-muck 

With this old world, for want of strife 

Sound asleep. Contrive, contrive 

To rouse us, Waring ! Who's alive? 200 

Our men scarce seem in earnest now. 

Distinguished names ! — but 't is, somehow, 

As if they played at being names 

Still more distinguished, like the games 

Of children. Turn our sport to earnest 

With a visage of the sternest ! 

Bring the real times back, confessed 

Still better than our very best ! 



II 

" When I last saw Waring ..." 
(How all turned to him who spoke ! 210 

You saw Waring ? Truth or joke ? 
In land-travel or sea-faring?) 

" We were sailing by Triest, 
Where a day or two we harbored : 
A sunset was in the West, 
When, looking over the vessel's side. 
One of our company espied 
A sudden speck to larboard. 
And, as a sea-duck flies and swims 
At once, so came the light craft up, 220 

With its sole lateen sail that trims 
And turns (the water round its rims 
Dancing, as round a sinking cup) 
And by us like a fish it curled, 
And drew itself up close beside. 
Its great sail on the instant furled, 
And o'er its thwarts a shrill voice cried 
(A neck as bronzed as a Lascar's), 
' Buy wine of us, you EngHsh brig? 
Or fruit, tobacco and cigars ? 230 

A pilot for you to Triest ? 



38 Waring 

Without one, look you ne'er so big, 

They '11 never let you up the bay ! 

We natives should know best.' 

I turned, and 'just those fellows' way,' 

Our captain said. ' The 'long-shore thieves 

Are laughing at us in their sleeves.' 

" In truth, the boy leaned laughing back ; 
And one, half-hidden by his side 
Under the furled sail, soon I spied, 240 

With great grass hat and kerchief black, 
AVho looked up with his kingly throat 
Said somewhat, while the other shook 
His hair back from his eyes to look 
Their longest at us ; then the boat, 
I know not how, turned sharply round, 
Laying her whole side on the sea 
As a leaping fish does ; from the lee 
Into the weather, cut somehow 
Her sparkling path beneath our bow, 250 

And so went off, as with a bound, 
Into the rosy and golden half 
O' the sky, to overtake the sun 
And reach the shore, like the sea-calf 
Its singing cave ; yet I caught one 
Glance ere away the boat quite passed, 
And neither time nor toil could mar 
Those features : so I saw the last 
Of Waring ! " — You ? Oh, never star 
Was lost here but it rose afar ! 260 

Look East, where whole new thousands are ! 
In Vishnu-land what Avatar ? 



Cristiita 39 



CRISTINA 

(1842) 

She should never have looked at me 

If she meant I should not love her ! 
There are plenty . . . men, you call such, 

I suppose . . . she may discover 
All her soul to, if she pleases, 

And yet leave much as she found them : 
But I 'm not so, and she knew it 

When she fixed me, glancing round them. 

What? To fix me thus meant nothing? 

But I can't tell (there 's my weakness) 10 

What her look said ! — no vile cant, sure, 

About " need to strew the bleakness 
Of some lone shore with its pearl-seed, 

That the sea feels " — no " strange yearning 
That such souls have, most to lavish 

Where there's chance of least returning." 

Oh, we 're sunk enough here, God knows ! 

But not quite so sunk that moments, 
Sure though seldom, are denied us 

When the spirit's true endowments 20 

Stand out plainly from its false ones, 

And apprise it if pursuing 
Or the right way or the wrong way, 

To its triumph or undoing. 

There are flashes struck from midnights, 

There are fire-flames noondays kindle, 
Whereby piled-up honors perish, 

Whereby swollen ambitions dwindle, 
While just this or that poor impulse, 

Which for once had play unstifled, 30 

Seems the sole work of a lifetime. 

That away the rest have trifled. 



40 Cristina 

Doubt you if, in some such moment, 

As she fixed me, she felt clearly 
Ages past the soul existed, 

Here an age 't is resting merely, 
And hence fleets again for ages : 

While the true end, sole and single, 
It stops here for is, this love-way, 

With some other soul to mingle ? 40 

Else it loses what it lived for, 

And eternally must lose it ; 
Better ends may be in prospect, 

Deeper blisses (if you chooee it), 
But this life's end and this love-bliss 

Have been lost here. Doubt you whether 
This she felt, as, looking at me. 

Mine and her souls rushed together? 

Oh, observe ! Of course, next moment. 

The world's honors, in derision, 50 

Trampled out the light forever : 

Never fear but there 's provision 
Of the devil's to quench knowledge. 

Lest we walk the earth in rapture ! 
— Making those who catch God's secret 

Just so much more prize their capture ! 

Such am I : the secret 's mine now ! 

She has lost me, I have gained her ; 
Her soul 's mine : and thus, grown perfect, 

I shall pass my life's remainder. 60 

Life will just hold out the proving 

Both our powers, alone and blended : 
And then, come the next life quickly ! 

This world's use will have been ended. 



The Pied Piper of Hamelin 4 1 

THE PIED PIPER OF HAMELIN 
A child's story 

(1842) 

Hamelin Town 's in Brunswick, 
By famous Hanover city ; 

The river Weser, deep and wide, 

Washes its wall on the southern side ; 

A pleasanter spot you never spied ; 
But, when begins my ditty. 

Almost five hundred years ago, 

To see the townsfolk suffer so 
From vermin, was a pity. 

Rats! 10 

They fought the dogs and killed the cats, 

And bit the babies in the cradles. 
And ate the cheeses out of the vats, 

And licked the soup from the cooks' own ladles. 
Split open the kegs of salted sprats, 
Made nests inside men's Sunday hats, 
And even spoiled the women's chats 

By drowning their speaking 

With shrieking and squeaking 
In fifty different sharps and flats. 20 

At last the people in a body 

To the Town Hall came flocking : 
" 'Tis clear," cried they, " our Mayor's a noddy ; 

And as for our Corporation — shocking 
To think we buy gowns lined with ermine 
For dolts that can't or won't determine 
What 's best to rid us of our vermin ! 
You hope, because you 're old and obese. 
To find in the furry civic robe ease ? 
Rouse up, sirs ! Give your brains a racking 30 

To find the remedy we 're lacking. 
Or, sure as fate, we '11 send you packing ! " 



42 The Pied Piper of Hamelin 

At this the Mayor and Corporation 
Quaked with a mighty consternation. 

An hour they sat in council ; 

At length the Mayor broke silence : 
" For a guilder I 'd my ermine gown sell, 

I wish I were a mile hence ! 
It 's easy to bid one rack one's brain — 
I 'm sure my poor head aches again, 40 

I Ve scratched it so, and all in vain. 
Oh for a trap, a trap, a trap ! " 
Just as he said this, what should hap 
At the chamber-door but a gentle tap ? 
"Bless us," cried the Mayor, "what's that ?" 
(With the Corporation as he sat. 
Looking Httle, though wondrous fat ; 
Nor brighter was his eye, nor moister. 
Than a too-long-opened oyster. 

Save when at noon his paunch grew mutinous 50 

For a plate of turtle, green and glutinous) 
" Only a scraping of shoes on the mat ? 
Anything like the sound of a rat 
Makes my heart go pit-a-pat ! " 

" Come in ! " — the Mayor cried, looking bigger : 

And in did come the strangest figure! 

His queer long coat from heel to head 

Was half of yellow and half of red, 

And he himself was tall and thin, 

With sharp blue eyes, each like a pin, 60 

And light loose hair, yet swarthy skin. 

No tuft on cheek nor beard on chin, 

But lips where smiles went out and in ; 

There was no guessing his kith and kin : 

And nobody could enough admire 

The tall man and his quaint attire. 

Quoth one : " It 's as my great-grandsire, 

Starting up at the Trump of Doom's tone, 

Had walked this way from his painted tombstone ! " 

He advanced to the council-table: 70 

And, " Please your honors," said he, " I 'm able, 
By means of a secret charm, to draw 



The Pied Piper of Hamelin 43 

All creatures living beneath the sun, 

That creep or swim or fly or run, 

After me so as you never saw ! 

And I chiefly use my charm 

On creatures that do people harm, 

The mole and toad and newt and viper ; 

And people call me the Pied Piper." 

(And here they noticed round his neck 80 

A scarf of red and yellow stripe 

To match with his coat of the self-same cheque ; 

And at the scarfs end hung a pipe ; 

And his fingers, they noticed, were ever straying 

As if impatient to be playing 

Upon this pipe, as low it dangled 

Over his vesture so old-fangled.) 

"Yet," said he, " poor piper as I am. 

In Tartary I freed the Cham, 

Last June, from his huge swarms of gnats ; 90 

I eased in Asia the Nizam 

Of a monstrous brood of vampire-bats : 

And as for what your brain bewilders, 

If I can rid your town of rats 

Will you give me a thousand guilders?" 

" One ? fifty thousand ! " — was the exclamation 

Of the astonished Mayor and Corporation. 

Into the street the Piper stept, 

Smiling first a little smile, 
As if he knew what magic slept 100 

In his quiet pipe the while \ 
Then, like a musical adept, 
To blow the pipe his lips he wrinkled, 
And green and blue his sharp eyes twinkled. 
Like a candle-flame where salt is sprinkled ; 
And ere three shrill notes the pipe uttered, 
You heard as if an army muttered ;• 
And the muttering grew to a grumbling ; 
And the grumbling grew to a mighty rumbling ; 
And out of the houses the rats came tumbling. 1 10 
Great rats, small rats, lean rats, brawny rats, 
Brown rats, black rats, gray rats, tawny rats, 
Grave old plodders, gay young friskers, 



44 The Pied Piper of Hamelin 

Fathers, mothers, uncles, cousins, 
Cocking tails and pricking whiskers, 

Families by tens and dozens, 
Brothers, sisters, husbands, wives — 
Followed the Piper for their lives. 
From street to street he piped advancing. 
And step for step they followed dancing, 120 

Until they came to the river Weser, 
Wherein all plunged and perished ! 

— Save one, who, stout as Julius Caesar, 
Swam across and lived to carry 

(As he the manuscript he cherished) 

To Rat-land home his commentary : 

Which was, " At the first shrill notes of the pipe, 

I heard a sound as of scraping tripe, 

And putting apples, wondrous ripe, 

Into a cider-press's gripe : 130 

And a moving away of pickle-tub-boards, 

And a leaving ajar of conserve-cupboards, 

And a drawing the corks of train-oil-flasks, 

And a breaking the hoops of butter-casks ; 

And it seemed as if a voice 

(Sweeter far than by harp or by psaltery 

Is breathed) called out, ' Oh rats, rejoice ! 

The world is grown to one vast drysaltery ! 

So munch on, crunch on, take your nuncheon. 

Breakfast, supper, dinner, luncheon!' 140 

And just as a bulky sugar-puncheon. 

All ready staved, like a great sun shone 

Glorious scarce an inch before me, 

Just as methought it said, ' Come, bore me ! ' 

— I found the Weser rolling o'er me." 

You should have heard the Hamelin people 

Ringing the bells till they rocked the steeple. 

"Go," cried the Mayor, "and get long poles, 

Poke out the nests and block up the holes ! 

Consult with carpenters and builders, 150 

And leave in our town not even a trace 

Of the rats ! " — when suddenly, up the face 

Of the Piper perked in the market-place, 

With a, " First, if you please, my thousand guilders ! " 



The Pied Piper of Hamelin 45 

A thousand guilders ! The Mayor looked blue ; 

So did the Corporation, too. 

For council dinners made rare havoc 

With Claret, Moselle, Vin-de-Grave, Hock ; 

And half the money would replenish 

Their cellar's biggest butt with Rhenish. 160 

To pay this sum to a wandering fellow 

With a gypsy coat of red and yellow ! 

" Beside," quoth the Mayor with a knowing wink, 

" Our business was done at the river's brink ; 

We saw with our eyes the vermin sink, 

And what's dead can't come to life, I think; 

So, friend, we 're not the folks to shrink 

From the duty of giving you something for drink, 

And a matter of money to put in your poke ; 

But as for the guilders, what we spoke 170 

Of them, as you very well know, was in joke. 

Beside, our losses have made us thrifty : 

A thousand guilders ! Come, take fifty ! " 

The Piper's face fell, and he cried, 

" No trifling ! I can't wait, beside ! 

I Ve promised to visit by dinner time 

Bagdat, and accept the prime 

Of the Head-Cook's pottage, all he 's rich in, 

For having left, in the Caliph's kitchen, 

Of a nest of scorpions no survivor : 180 

With him I proved no bargain-driver, 

With you, don't think I '11 bate a stiver ! 

And folks who put me in a passion 

May find me pipe after another fashion." 

" How?" cried the Mayor, "d' ye think I brook 

Being worse treated than a Cook ? 

Insulted by a lazy ribald 

With idle pipe and vesture piebald ? 

You threaten us, fellow ? Do your worst, 

Blow your pipe there till you burst ! " 190 

Once more he stept into the street. 

And to his lips again 
Laid his long pipe of smooth straight cane ; 



46 The Pied Piper of Hamelin 

And ere he blew three notes (such sweet 
Soft notes as yet musician's cunning 

Never gave the enraptured air) 
There was a rustHng that seemed hke a busthng 
Of merr)' crowds justhng at pitching and hustUng ; 
Small feet were pattering, wooden shoes clattering, 
Little hands clapping and little tongues chattering, 200 
And, like fowls in a farm-yard when barley is scattering, 
Out came the children running. 
All the little boys and girls, 
With rosy cheeks and flaxen curls, 
And sparkling eyes and teeth like pearls, 
Tripping and skipping, ran merrily after 
The wonderful music with shouting and laughter. 

The Mayor was dumb, and the Council stood 

As if they were changed into blocks of wood, 

Unable to move a step, or cry 210 

To the children merrily skipping by, 

— Could only follow with the eye 

That joyous crowd at the Piper's back. 

But how the Mayor was on the rack, 

And the wretched Council's bosoms beat, 

As the Piper turned from the High Street 

To where the Weser rolled its waters 

Right in the way of their sons and daughters ! 

However, he turned from South to West, 

And to Koppelberg Hill his steps addressed, 220 

And after him the children pressed ; 

Great was the joy in every breast. 

" He never can cross that mighty top ! 

He 's forced to let the piping drop, 

And we shall see our children stop ! " 

When, lo ! as they reached the mountain-side, 

A wondrous portal opened wide, 

As if a cavern was suddenly hollowed ; 

And the Piper advanced and the children followed, 

And when all were in to the very last, 230 

The door in the mountain-side shut fast. 

Did I say all? No ! One was lame. 

And could not dance the whole of the way ; 

And in after years, if you would blame 



The Pied Piper of Hamelin 47 

His sadness, he was used to say, — 

" It 's dull in our town since my playmates left ! 

I can't forget that I 'm bereft 

Of all the pleasant sights they see, 

Which the Piper also promised me. 

For he led us, he said, to a joyous land, 240 

Joining the town and just at hand. 

Where waters gushed and fruit-trees grew 

And flowers put forth a fairer hue, 

And everything was strange and new ; 

The sparrows were brighter than peacocks here, 

And their dogs outran our fallow deer, 

And honey-bees had lost their stings, 

And horses were born with eagles' wings : 

And just as I became a^^sured 

My lame foot would be speedily cured, 250 

The music stopped and I stood still, 

And found myself outside the hill, 

Left alone against my will, 

To go now limping as before. 

And never hear of that country more ! " 

Alas, alas, for Hamelin ! 

There came into many a burgher's pate 

A text which says that heaven's gate 

Opes to the rich at as easy rate 
As the needle's eye takes a camel in ! 260 

The Mayor sent East, West, North and South, 
To offer the Piper, by word of mouth, 

Wherever it was men's lot to find him, 
Silver and gold to his heart's content. 
If he 'd only return the way he went, 

And bring the children behind him. 
But when they saw 't was a lost endeavor. 
And Piper and dancers were gone forever, 
They made a decree that lawyers never 

Should think their records dated duly 270 

If, after the day of the month and year, 
These words did not as well appear, 
" And so long after what happened here 

On the Twenty-second of July, 
Thirteen hundred and seventy-six ; " 



48 The Pied Piper of Hamelin 

And, the better in memory to fix 

The place of the children's last retreat, 

They called it the Pied Piper's Street — 

Where any one playing on pipe or tabor 

Was sure for the future to lose his labor. 280 

Nor suffered they hostelry or tavern 

To shock with mirth a street so solemn ; 
But opposite the place of the cavern 

They wrote the story on a column, 
And on the great church-window painted 
The same, to make the world acquainted 
How their children were stolen away, 
And there it stands to this very day. 
And I must not omit to say 

That in Transylvania there 's a tribe 290 

Of alien people, who ascribe 
The outlandish ways and dress 
On which their neighbors lay such stress. 
To their fathers and mothers having risen 
Out of some subterraneous prison 
Into which they were trepanned 
Long time ago in a mighty band 
Out of Hamelin town in Brunswick land, 
But how or why, they don't understand. 

So, Willy, let me and you be wipers 300 

Of scores out with all men — especially pipers ! 

And, whether they pipe us free from rats or from 

mice. 
If we 've promised them aught, let us keep our 

promise ! ^ 



" How They Brought the Good News " 49 



"HOW THEY BROUGHT THE GOOD 
NEWS FROM GHENT TO AIX" 

. (1845) 

I sprang to the stirrup, and Joris, and he ; 

I galloped, Dirck galloped, we galloped all three ; 

" Good speed ! " cried the watch, as the gate-bolts 

undrew ; 
" Speed 1 " echoed the wall to us galloping through ; 
Behind shut the postern, the lights sank to rest, 
And into the midnight we galloped abreast. 

Not a word to each other ; we kept the great pace 
Neck by neck, stride by stride, never changing our 

place ; 
I turned in my saddle and made its girths tight, 
Then shortened each stirrup, and set the pique 

right, 10 

Rebuckled the cheek-strap, chained slacker the bit, 
Nor galloped less steadily Roland a whit. 

'T was moonset at starting ; but while we drew near 
Lokeren, the cocks crew and twilight dawned clear ; 
At Boom, a great yellow star came out to see ; 
At DUffeld, 't was morning as plain as could be ; 
And from Mecheln church-steeple we heard the half- 

- chime. 
So Joris broke silence with, " Yet there is time I " 

At Aershot, up leaped of a sudden the sun, 
And against him the cattle stood black every one, 20 
To stare through the mist at us galloping past, 
And I saw my stout galloper Roland at last, 
With resolute shoulders, each butting away 
The haze, as some bluff river headland its spray : 
4 



50 "-How They Brought the Good News " 

And his low head and crest, just one sharp ear bent 

back 
For my voice, and the other pricked out on his track ; 
And one eye's black intelligence, — ever that glance 
O'er its white edge at ine, his own master, askance ! 
And the thick heavy spume-flakes which aye and 

anon 
His fierce lips shook upwards in galloping on. 30 

By Hasselt, Dirck groaned ; and cried Joris, " Stay 

spur! 
Your Roos galloped bravely, the fault 's not in her, 
We'll remember at Aix" — for one heard the quick 

wheeze 
Of her chest, saw the stretched neck and staggering 

knees. 
And sunk tail, and horrible heave of the flank, 
As down on her haunches she shuddered and sank. 

So, we were left galloping, Joris and I, 
Past Looz and past Tongres, no cloud in the sky ; 
The broad sun above laughed a pitiless laugh, 
'Neath our feet broke the brittle bright stubble like 

chaff; 40 

Till over by Dalhem a dome-spire sprang white. 
And "Gallop," gasped Joris, " for Aix is in sight! " 

"How they '11 greet us!" — and all in a moment his 

roan 
Rolled neck and croup over, lay dead as a stone ; 
And there was my Roland to bear the whole weight 
Of the news which alone could save Aix from her fate. 
With his nostrils like pits full of blood to the brim, 
And with circles of red for his eye-sockets' rim. 

Then I cast loose my buffcoat, each holster let fall, 
Shook off" both my jack-boots, let go belt and all, 50 
Stood up in the stirrup, leaned, patted his ear, 
Called my Roland his pet-name, my horse without 
peer; 



Pic tor Ignotus 5 1 

Clapped my hands, laughed and sang, any noise, bad 

or good, 
Till at length into Aix Roland galloped and stood. 

And all I remember is — friends flocking round 
As I sat with his head 'twixt my knees on the ground ; 
And no voice but was praising this Roland of mine, 
As I poured down his throat our last measure of wine. 
Which (the burgesses voted by common consent) 
Was no more than his due who brought good news 
from Ghent. 60 



PICTOR IGNOTUS 

FLORENCE, I 5 — 
(1845) 

I could have painted pictures like that youth's 

Ye praise so. How my soul springs up ! No bar 
Stayed me — ah, thought which saddens while it 
soothes ! 

— Never did fate forbid me, star by star, 
To outburst on your night with all my gift 

Of fires from God ; nor would my flesh have shrunk 
From seconding my soul, with eyes uplift 

And wide to heaven, or, straight like thunder, sunk 
To the centre, of an instant ; or around 

Turned calmly and inquisitive, to scan lo 

The license and the limit, space and bound, 

Allowed the truth made visible in man. 
And, like that youth ye praised so, all I saw, 

Over the canvas could my hand have flung, 
Each face obedient to its passion's law, 

Each passion clear proclaimed without a tongue ; 
Whether Hope rose at once in all the blood, 

A tiptoe for the blessing of embrace, 
Oi Rapture drooped the eyes, as when her brood 

Pull down the nesting dove's heart to its place ; 20 



52 Pictor Ignotus 

Or Confidence lit swift the forehead up, 

And locked the mouth fast, like a castle braved, — 
O human faces, hath it spilt my cup ? 

What did ye give me that I have not saved? 
Nor will I say I have not dreamed (how well !) 

Of going — I, in each new picture, — forth. 
As, making new hearts beat and bosoms swell, 

To Pope or Kaiser, East, West, South, or North, 
Bound for the calmly satisfied great State, 

Or glad aspiring little burgh, it went, 30 

Flowers cast upon the car which bore the freight, 

Through old streets named afresh from the event, 
Till it reached home, where learned age should greet 

My face and youth, the star not yet distinct 
Above his hair, lie learning at my feet ! — 

Oh, thus to live, I and my picture, linked 
With love about, and praise, till life should end, 

And then not go to heaven, but linger here, 
Here on my earth, earth's every man my friend, — 

The thought grew frightful, 't was so wildly dear ! 40 
But a voice changed it. Glimpses of such sights 

Have scared me, like the revels through a door 
Of some strange house of idols at its rites ! 

This world seemed not the world it was before ; 
Mixed with my loving, trusting ones, there trooped 

. . . Who summoned these cold faces that begun 
To press on me and judge me? Though I stooped 

Shrinking, as from the soldiery a nun, 
They drew me forth, and spite of me . . . enough ! 

These buy and sell our pictures, take and give, 50 
Count them for garniture and household-stuff, 

And where they live needs must our pictures live 
And see their faces, listen to their prate. 

Partakers of their daily pettiness. 
Discussed of, — " This I love, or this I hate, 

This likes me more, and this affects me less ! " 
Wherefore I chose my portion. If at whiles 

My heart sinks, as monotonous I paint 
These endless cloisters and eternal aisles 

With the same series, Virgin, Babe and Saint, 60 
With the same cold calm beautiful regard, — 

At least no merchant traffics in my heart ; 



The Lost Leader 53 

The sanctuary's gloom at least shall ward 

Vain tongues from where my pictures stand apart ; 
Only prayer breaks the silence of the shrine 

While, blackening in the daily candle-smoke, 
They moulder on the damp wall's travertine, 

'Mid echoes the light footstep never woke. 
So, die my pictures ! surely, gently die ! 

O youth, men praise so, — holds their praise its 

worth ? 70 

Blown harshly, keeps the trump its golden cry? 

Tastes sweet the water with such specks of earth? 



THE LOST LEADER 

(184s) 

Just for a handful of silver he left us, 

Just for a riband to stick in his coat — 
Found the one gift of which fortune bereft us, 

Lost all the others she lets us devote ; 
They, with the gold to give, doled him out silver, 

So much was theirs who so little allowed : 
How all our copper had gone for his service ! 

Rags — were they purple, his heart had been proud ! 
We that had loved him so, followed him, honored 
him, 

Lived in his mild and magnificent eye, 10 

Learned his great language, caught his clear accents, 

Made him our pattern to live and to die ! 
Shakespeare was of us, Milton was for us, 

Burns, Shelley, were with us, — they watch from 
their graves ! 
He alone breaks from the van and the freemen ! 
— He alone sinks to the rear and the slaves ! 

We shall march prospering, — not through his 
presence ; 

Songs may inspirit us, — not from his lyre ; 
Deeds will be done, — while he boasts his quiescence, 

Still bidding crouch whom the rest bade aspire : 20 



54 Home Thoughts, Froi7t Abroad 

Blot out his name, then, record one lost soul more, 

One task more declined, one more footpath untrod, 
One more devils'-triumph and sorrow for angels, 

One wrong more to man, one more insult to God ! 
Life's night begins : let him never come back to us ! 

There would be doubt, hesitation and pain. 
Forced praise on our part — the glimmer of twilight, 

Never glad, confident morning again ! 
Best fight on well, for we taught him — strike gallantly, 

Menace our heart ere we master his own ; 30 

Then let him receive the new knowledge and wait us, 

Pardoned in heaven, the first by the throne ! 



HOME THOUGHTS, FROM ABROAD 

(1845) 

Oh, to be in England 

Now that April 's there, 

And whoever wakes in England 

Sees, some morning, unaware, 

That the lowest boughs and the brush-wood sheaf 

Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf, 

While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough 

In England — now ! 

And after April, when May follows. 
And the whitethroat builds, and all the swallows ! 10 
Hark ! where my blossomed pear-tree in the hedge 
Leans to the field and scatters on the clover 
Blossoms and dewdrops — at the bent spray's edge 
That's the wise thrush; he sings each song twice 

over, 
Lest you should think he never could recapture 
The first fine careless rapture ! 
And though the fields look rough with hoary dew, 
All will be gay when noontide wakes anew 
The buttercups, the httle children's dower 
— Far brighter than this gaudy melon-flower ! 20 



The Bishop Orders his Tomb 55 



HOME THOUGHTS, FROM THE SEA 

(1845) 

Nobly, nobly Cape Saint Vincent to the Northwest 

died away ; 
Sunset ran, one glorious blood-red, reeking into Cadiz 

Bay; 
Bluish 'mid the burning water, full in face Trafalgar 

lay; 
In the dimmest Northeast distance dawned Gibraltar 

grand and gray ; 
" Here and here did England help me : how can I 

help England ? " — say, 
Whoso turns as I, this evening, turn to God to praise 

and pray, 
While Jove's planet rises yonder, silent over Africa. 



THE BISHOP ORDERS HIS TOMB AT 
SAINT PRAXED'S CHURCH 
Rome, 15 — 
(1845) 

Vanity, saith the preacher, vanity ! 

Draw round my bed : is Anselm keeping back ? 

Nephews — sons mine ... ah God, I know not ! 

Well — 

She, men would have to be your mother once. 

Old Gandolf envied me, so fair she was ! 

What 's done is done, and she is dead beside, 

Dead long ago, and I am Bishop since, 

And as she died so must we die ourselves. 

And thence ye may perceive the world 's a dream. 

Life, how and what is it? As here I he 10 

In this state-chamber, dying by degrees, 

Hours and long hours in the dead night, I ask 

" Do I live, am I dead? " Peace, peace seems all. 



56 The Bishop Orders his Tomb 

Saint Praxed's ever was the church for peace ; 
And so, about this tomb of mine. I fought 
With tooth and nail to save my niche, ye know : 

— Old Gandolf cozened me, despite my care; 
Shrewd was that snatch from out the corner South 
He graced his carrion with, God curse the same ! 
Yet still my niche is not so cramped but thence 20 
One sees the pulpit o' the epistle-side, 

And somewhat of the choir, those silent seats, 

And up into the aery dome where live 

The angels, and a sunbeam 's sure to lurk : 

And I shall fill my slab of basalt there, 

And 'neath my tabernacle take my rest, 

With those nine columns round me, two and two, 

The odd one at my feet where Anselm stands : 

Peach-blossom marble all, the rare, the ripe, 

As fresh-poured red wine of a mighty pulse. 30 

— Old Gandolf with his paltry onion-stone, 

Put me where I may look at him ! True peach, 

Rosy and flawless : how I earned the prize ! 

Draw close : that conflagration of ray church 

— What then? So much was saved if aught were 

missed ! 
My sons, ye would not be my death ? Go dig 
The white-grape vineyard where the oil-press stood, 
Drop water gently till the surface sink, 
And if ye find ... Ah God, I know not, I ! . . . 
Bedded in store of rotten fig-leaves soft, 40 

And corded up in a tight olive-frail. 
Some lump, ah God, of lapis lazuli, 
Big as a Jew's head cut off at the nape, 
Blue as a vein o'er the Madonna's breast . . . 
Sons, all have I bequeathed you, villas, all, 
That brave Frascati villa with its bath, 
So, let the blue lump poise between my knees, 
Like God the Father's globe on both his hands 
Ye worship in the Jesu Church so gay, 
For Gandolf shall not choose but see and burst ! 50 
Swift as a weaver's shuttle fleet our years : 
Man goeth to the grave, and where is he ? 
Did I say basalt for my slab, sons ? Black — 
'T was ever antique-black I meant ! How else 



The Bishop Orders his Tomb 5 7 

Shall ye contrast my frieze to come beneath ? 

The bas-relief in bronze ye promised me, 

Those Pans and Nymphs ye wot of, and perchance 

Some tripod, thyrsus, with a vase or so, 

The Saviour at his sermon on the mount, 

Saint Praxed in a glory, and one Pan 60 

Ready to twitch the Nymph's last garment off, 

And Moses with the tables . . . but I know 

Ye mark me not ! What do they whisper thee, \ 

Child of my bowels, Ansehn ? Ah, ye hope ^- 

To revel down my villas while I gasp 

Bricked o'er with beggar's mouldy travertine 

Which Gandolf from his tomb-top chuckles at ! 

Nay, boys, ye love me — all of jasper, then ! 

'T is jasper ye stand pledged to, lest I grieve 

My bath niust needs be left behind, alas I 70 

One block, pure green as a pistachio-nut, 

There 's plenty jasper somewhere in the world — 

And have I not Saint Praxed's ear to pray 

Horses for ye, and brown Greek manuscripts, 

And mistresses with great smooth marbly limbs ? 

— That 's if ye carve my epitaph aright. 

Choice Latin, picked phrase, Tully's every word, 

No gaudy ware like Gandolf s second line — 

TuUy, my masters ? Ulpian serves his need 1 

And then how I shall lie through centuries, 80 

And hear the blessed mutter of the mass. 

And see God made and eaten all day long, 

And feel the steady candle-flame, and taste 

Good strong thick stupefying incense-smoke ! 

For as I he here, hours of the dead night, 

Dying in state and by such slow degrees, 

I fold my arms as if they clasped a crook, 

And stretch my feet forth straight as stone can point, 

And let the bedclothes, for a mortcloth, drop 

Into great laps and folds of sculptor' s-work : 90 

And as yon tapers dwindle, and strange thoughts 

Grow, with a certain humming in my ears, 

About the Hfe before I lived this life, 

And this life too, popes, cardinals and priests, 

Saint Praxed at his sermon on the mount. 

Your tall pale mother with her talking eyes, 



58 Garden Fancies 

And new-found agate urns as fresh as day, 
And marble's language, Latin pure, discreet, 

— Aha, ELUCESCEBAT quoth our friend ? 

No Tully, said I, Ulpian at the best ! loc 

Evil and brief hath been my pilgrimage. 

All lapis, all, sons ! Else I give the Pope 

My villas ! Will ye ever eat my heart ? 

Ever your eyes were as a lizard's quick, 

They glitter like your mother's for my soul, 

Or ye would heighten my impoverished frieze, 

Piece out its starved design, and fill my vase 

With grapes, and add a visor and a Term, 

And to the tripod ye would tie a lynx 

That in his struggle throws the thyrsus down, iic 

To comfort me on my entablature 

Whereon I am to lie till I must ask 

" Do I live, am I dead ? " There, leave me, there ! 

For ye have stabbed me with ingratitude 

To death — ye wish it — God, ye wish it ! Stone — 

Gritstone, a-crumble ! Clammy squares which sweat 

As if the corpse they keep were oozing through — 

And no more lapis to delight the world ! 

Well, go ! I bless ye. Fewer tapers there, 

But in a row : and, going, turn your backs 12c 

— Ay, like departing altar-ministrants. 

And leave me in my church, the church for peace, 
That I may watch at leisure if he leers — 
Old Gandolf — at me, from his onion-stone, 
As still he envied me, so fair she was ! 



GARDEN FANCIES 
(1845) . 

THE FLOWER'S NAME 

Here 's the garden she walked across. 

Arm in my arm, such a short while since: 

Hark, now I push its wicket, the moss 

Hinders the hinges and makes them wince ! 



Garde7i Fancies 59 

She must have reached this shrub ere she turned, 
As back with that murmur the wicket swung ; 

For she laid the poor snail, my chance foot 
spurned, 
To feed and forget it the leaves among. 

Down this side of the gravel-walk 

She went, while her robe's edge brushed the box : 10 
And here she paused in her gracious talk 

To point me a moth on the milk-white phlox. 
Roses, ranged ia valiant row, 

I will never think that she passed you by ! 
She loves you, noble roses, 1 know ; 

But yonder, see, where the rock-plants lie ! 

This flower she stopped at, finger on lip, 

Stooped over, in doubt, as settling its claim ; 
Till she gave me, with pride to make no slip, 

Its soft meandering Spanish name. 20 

What a name ! Was it love or praise ? 

Speech half-asleep or song half-awake ."* 
I must learn Spanish, one of these days, 

Only for that slow sweet name's sake. 

Roses, if I live and do well, 

I' may bring her, one of these days, 
To fix you fast with as fine a spell, 

Fit you each with his Spanish phrase ; 
But do not detain me now ; for she lingers 

There, like sunshine over the ground, 30 

And ever I see her soft white fingers 

Searching after the bud she found. 

Flower, yoil Spaniard, look tha* you grow not. 

Stay as you are and be loved forever ! 
Bud, if I kiss y6u 't is that you blow not. 

Mind, the shut pink mouth opens never ! 
For while it pouts, her fingers wrestle, 

Twinkling the audacious leaves between, 
Till round they turn and down they nestle — 

Is not the dear mark still to be seen ? 40 



6o Garden Fancies 

Where I find her not, beauties vanish ; 

Whither I follow her, beauties flee ; 
Is there no method to tell her in Spanish 

June 's twice June since she breathed it with 
me? 
Come, bud, show me the least of her traces, 

Treasure my lady's lightest footfall ! 
— Ah, you may flout and turn up your faces — 

Roses, you are not so fair after all ! 



The Flight of the Duchess 6 1 

THE FLIGHT OF THE DUCHESS 

(1S45) 

You 're my friend : 

I was the man the Duke spoke to ; 

I helped the Duchess to cast off his yoke, too ; 

So, here 's the tale from beginning to end 

My friend ! 

Ours is a great wild country : 

If you climb to our castle's top, 

I don't see where your eye can stop ; 

For when you Ve passed the cornfield country, 

Where vineyards leave off, flocks are packed, 10 

And sheep-range leads to cattle-tract, 

And cattle-tract to open-chase, 

And open-chase to the very base 

Of the mountain, where, at a funeral pace, 

Round about, solemn and slow, 

One by one, row after row, 

Up and up the pine-trees go, 

So, like black priests up, and so 

Down the other side again 

To another greater, wilder country, 20 

That 's one vast red drear burnt-up plain, 

Branched through and through with many a 

vein 
Whence iron 's dug and copper 's dealt ; 
Look right, look left, look straight before, — 
Beneath they mine, above they smelt. 
Copper-ore and iron-ore. 
And forge and furnace mould and melt, 
And so on, more and ever more. 
Till at the last, for a bounding belt. 
Comes the salt sand hoar of the great sea-shore, 30 
— And the whole is our Duke's country ! 

I was born the day this present Duke was — 
(And O, says the song, ere I was old !) 



62 The Flight of the Duchess 

In the castle where the other Duke was — 

(When I was happy and young, not old !) 

I in the kennel, he in the bower : 

We are of like age to an hour. 

My father was huntsman in that day ; 

Who has not heard my father say 

That, when a boar was brought to bay, 40 

Three times, four times out of five, 

With his huntspear he 'd contrive 

To get the killing-place transfixed, 

And pin him true, both eyes betwixt ? 

And that 's why the old Duke would rather 

He lost a salt-pit than my father, 

And loved to have him ever in call ; 

That 's why my father stood in the hall 

When the old Duke brought his infant out 

To show the people, and while they passed 50 

The wondrous bantling round about. 

Was first to start at the outside blast 

As the Kaiser's courier blew his horn, 

Just a month after the babe was born. 

" And," quoth the Kaiser's courier, " since 

The Duke has got an heir, our Prince 

Needs the Duke's self at his side: " 

The Duke looked down and seemed to wince, 

But he thought of wars o'er the world wide, 

Castles a-fire, men on their march, 60 

The toppling tower, the crashing arch ; 

And up he looked, and awhile he eyed 

The row of crests and shields and banners 

Of all achievements after all manners, 

And "ay," said the Duke with a surly pride. 

The more was his comfort when he died 

At next year's end, in a velvet suit, 

With a gilt glove on his hand, his foot 

In a silken shoe for a leather boot, 

Petticoated like a herald, 70 

In a chamber next to an ante-room. 

Where he breathed the breath of page and 

groom. 
What he called stink, and they, perfume : 
— They should have set him on red Berold 



The Flight of the Duchess 63 

Mad with pride, like fire to manage ! 

They should have got his cheek fresh tannage 

Such a day as to-day in the merry sunshine ! 

Had they stuck on his fist a rough-foot merlin ! 

(Hark, the wind 's on the heath at its game ! 

Oh for a noble falcon-lanner 80 

To flap each broad wing like a banner, 

And turn in the wind, and dance like flame !) 

Had they broached a white-beer cask from Berlin 

— Or if you incline to prescribe mere wine 
Put to his lips, when they saw him pine, 

A cup of our own Moldavia fine, 
Cotnar for instance, green as May sorrel 
And ropy with sweet, — we shall not quarrel. 

So, at home, the sick tall yellow Duchess 

Was left with the infant in her clutches, 90 

She being the daughter of God knows who : 

And now was the time to revisit her tribe. 

Abroad and afar they went, the two, 

And let our people rail and gibe 

At the empty hall and extinguished fire, 

As loud as we liked, but ever in vain, 

Till after long years we had our desire, 

And back came the Duke and his mother again. 

And he came back the pertest little ape 

That ever affronted human shape ; 100 

Full of his travel, struck at himself. 

You 'd say, he despised our bluff old ways ? 

— Not he ! For in Paris they told the elf 
Our rough North land was the Land of Lays, 
The one good thing left in evil days ; 

Since the Mid-Age was the Heroic Time, 

And only in wild nooks like ours 

Could you taste of it yet as in its prime. 

And see true castles, with proper towers. 

Young-hearted women, old-minded men, no 

And manners now as manners were then. 

So, all that the old Dukes had been, without knowing 

it, 
This Duke would fain know he was, without being it ; 



64 The Flight of the Duchess 

'Twas not for the joy's self, but the joy of his show- 
ing it, 

Nor for the pride's self, but the pride of our seeing it, 

He revived all usages thoroughly worn-out, 

The souls of them fumed-forth, the hearts of them 
torn -out : 

And chief in the chase his neck he perilled, 

On a lathy horse, all legs and length, 

With blood for bone, all speed, no strength ; 120 

— They should have set him on red Rerold 
With the red eye slow consuming in fire, 
And the thin stiff ear like an abbey spire ! 

Well, such as he was, he must marry, we heard : 
And out of a convent, at the word, 
Came the lady, in time of spring. 

— Oh, old thoughts they cling, they cling ! 
That day, I know, with a dozen oaths 

I clad myself in thick hunting-clothes 

Fit for the chase of urochs or buflle 130 

In winter-time when you need to muffle. 

But the Duke had a mind we should cut a figure. 

And so we saw the lady arrive : 

My friend, I have seen a white crane bigger! 

She was the smallest lady alive, 

Made in a piece of nature's madness, 

Too small, almost, for the life and gladness 

That over-filled her, as some hive 

Out of the bears' reach on the high trees 

Is crowded with its safe merry bees : 140 

In truth, she was not hard to please ! 

Up she looked, down she looked, round at the mead, 

Straight at the castle, that 's best indeed 

To look at from outside the walls : 

As for us, styled the " serfs and thralls," 

She as much thanked me as if she had said it, 

(With her eyes, do you understand?) 

Because I patted her horse while I led it ; 

And Max, who rode on her other hand, 

Said no bird flew past but she inquired 150 

What its true name was, nor ever seemed tired — 

If that was an eagle she saw hover, 



llie Flight of the Duchess 65 

And the green and gray bird on the field was the 

plover. 
When suddenly appeared the Duke : 
And as down she sprung, the small foot pointed 
On to my hand, — as with a rebuke, 
And as if his backbone were not jointed, 
The Duke stepped rather aside than forward, 
And welcomed her with his grandest smile ; 
And, mind you, his mother all the while 160 

Chilled in the rear, like a wind to Nor'ward ; 
And up, like a weary yawn, with its pulleys 
Went, in a shriek, the rusty portcullis ; 
And, like a glad sky the north-wind sullies, 
The lady's face stopped its play, 
As if her first hair had grown gray; 
For such things must begin some one day. 

In a day or two she was well again ; 

As who should say, " You labor in vain ! 

This is all a jest against God, who meant 170 

I should ever be, as I am, content 

And glad in his sight ; therefore, glad I will be." 

So, smiling as at first went she. 

She was active, stirring, all fire — 
Could not rest, could not tire — 
To a stone she might have given life ! 
(I myself loved once, in my day) 
— For a shepherd's, miner's, huntsman's wife, 
(I had a wife, I know what I say) 
Never in all the world such an one ! 180 

And here was plenty to be done, 
And she that could do it, great or small, 
She was to do nothing at all. 
There was already this man in his post. 
This in his station, and that in his office. 
And the Duke's plan admitted a wife, at most, 
To meet his eye, with the other trophies, 
Now outside the hall, now in it. 
To sit thus, stand thus, see and be seen. 
At the proper place in the proper minute, 190 

And die away the life between. 
5 



66 The Flight of the Duchess 

And it was amusing enough, each infraction 
Of rule — (but for after-sadness that came) 
To hear the consummate self-satisfaction 
With which the young Duke and the old dame 
Would let her advise and criticise, 
And, being a fool, instruct the wise, 
■ And, child-like, parcel out praise or blame : 
They bore it all in complacent guise. 
As though an artificer, after contriving 200 

A wheel-work image as if it were living, 
Should find with delight it could motion to strike him ! 
So found the Duke, and his mother like him : 
The lady hardly got. a rebuff — 
That had not been contemptuous enough. 
With his cursed smirk, as he nodded applause, 
And kept off the old mother-cat's claws. 

So, the little lady grew silent and thin, 

Paling and ever paling, 
As the way is with a hid chagrin ; 210 

And the Duke perceived that she was ailing, 
And said in his heart, " 'T is done to spite me, 
But I shall find in my power to right me ! " 
Don't swear, friend ! The old one, many a year, 
Is in hell, and the Duke's self . . . you shall hear. 

Well, early in autumn, at first winter-warning, 
When the stag had to break with his foot, of a morn- 
ing, 
A drinking-hole out of the fresh tender ice 
That covered the pond till the sun, in a trice, 
Loosening it, let out a ripple of gold, 220 

And another and another, and faster and faster, 
Till, dimpling to blindness, the wide water rolled : 
Then it so chanced that the Duke our master 
Asked himself what were the pleasures in season, 
And found, since the calendar bade him be hearty, 
He should do the Middle Age no treason 
In resolving on a hunting-party. 
Always provided old books showed the way of it ! 
What meant old poets by their strictures ? 
And when old poets had said their say of it, 230 



The Flight of the Duchess 6 7 

How taught old painters in their pictures ? 

We must revert to the proper channels, 

Workings in tapestry, paintings on panels, 

And gather up woodcraft's authentic traditions : 

Here was food for our various ambitions. 

As on each case, exactly stated — 

To encourage your dog, now, the properest chirrup, 

Or best prayer to Saint Hubert on mounting your 

stirrup — 
We of the household took thought and debated. 
Blessed was he whos^ back ached with the jerkin 240 
His sire was wont to do forest-work in ; 
Blesseder he who nobly sunk " ohs " 
And "ahs" while he tugged on his grandsire's trunk- 
hose ; 
What signified hats if they had no rims on, 
Each slouching before and behind like the scallop, 
And able to serve at sea for a shallop. 
Loaded with lacquer and looped with crimson ? 
So that the deer now, to make a short rhyme on 't, 
What with our Venerers, Prickers and Verderers, 
Might hope for real hunters at length and not mur- 
derers, 250 
And oh the Duke's tailor, he had a hot time on 't ! 

Now you must know that when the first dizziness 
Of flap-hats and buff-coats and jack-boots subsided. 
The Duke put this question, " The Duke's part pro- 
vided, 
Had not the Duchess some share in the business ? " 
For out of the mouth of two or three witnesses 
Did he establish all fit-or-unfitnesses : 
And, after much laying of heads together, 
Somebody's cap got a notable feather 
By the announcement with proper unction 260 

That he had discovered the lady's function ; 
Since ancient authors gave this tenet, 
" When horns wind a mort and the deer is at siege, 
Let the dame of the castle prick forth on her jennet. 
And, with water to wash the hands of her liege 
In a clean ewer with a fair towelling, 
Let her preside at the disembowelling." 



68 The Flight of the Duchess 

Now, my friend, if you had so little religion 

As to catch a hawk, some falcon-lanner, 

And thrust her broad wings like a banner 270 

Into a coop for a vulgar pigeon ; 

And if day by day and week by week 

You cut her claws, and sealed her eyes, 

And clipped her wings, and tied her beak, 

Would it cause you any great surprise 

If, when you decided to give her an airing, 

You found she needed a Httle preparing ? 

— I say, should you be such a curmudgeon, 

If she clung to the perch, as to take it in dudgeon ? 

Yet when the Duke to his lady signified, 280 

Just a day before, as he judged most dignified, 

In what a pleasure she was to participate, — 

And, instead of leaping wide in flashes, 

Her eyes just Mfted their long lashes, 

As if pressed by fatigue even he could not dissipate, 

And duly acknowledged the Duke's forethought, 

But spoke of her health, if her health were worth aught, 

Of the weight by day and the watch by night, 

And much wrong now that used to be right. 

So, thanking him, declined the hunting, — 290 

Was conduct ever more affronting? 

With all the ceremony settled — 

With the towel ready, and the sewer 

Polishing up his oldest ewer, 

And the jennet pitched upon, a piebald. 

Black-barred, cream-coated and pink eye-balled, — 

No wonder if the Duke was nettled ! 

And when she persisted nevertheless, — 

Well, I suppose here 's the time to confess 

That there ran half-round our lady's chamber 300 

A balcony none of the hardest to clamber ; 

And that Jacynth the tire-woman, ready in waiting, 

Stayed in call outside, what need of relating ? 

And since Jacynth was like a June rose, why, a fervent 

Adorer of Jacynth of course was your servant ; 

And if she had the habit to peep through the casement, 

How could I keep at any vast distance ? 

And so, as I say, on the lady's persistence, 

The Duke, dumb-stricken with amazement, 



The Flight of the Duchess 69 

Stood for a while in a sultry smother, 310 

And then, with a smile that partook of the awful, 

Turned her over to his yellow mother 

To learn what was held decorous and lawful ; 

And the mother smelt blood with a cat-like instinct, 

As her cheek quick whitened through all its quince-tinct. 

Oh, but the lady heard the whole truth at once ! 

What meant she? — Who was she? — Her duty and 

station. 
The wisdom of age and the folly of youth, at once, 
Its decent regard and its fitting relation — 
In brief, my friend, set all the devils in hell free 320 
And turn them out to carouse in a belfry 
And treat the priests to a fifty-part canon, 
And then you may guess how that tongue of hers ran 

on ! 
Well, somehow or other it ended at last 
And, licking her whiskers, out she passed ; 
And after her, — making (he hoped) a face 
Like Emperor Nero or Sultan Saladin, 
Stalked the Duke's self with the austere grace 
Of ancient hero or modern paladin, 
From door to staircase — oh such a solemn 330 

Unbending of the vertebral column ! 
However, at sunrise our company mustered ; 
And here was the huntsman bidding unkennel. 
And there 'neath his bonnet the pricker blustered. 
With feather dank as a bough of wet fennel ; 
For the court-yard walls were filled with fog 
You might have cut as an axe chops a log — 
Like so much wool for color and bulkiness ; 
And out rode the Duke in a perfect sulkiness, 
Since, before breakfast, a man feels but queasily, 340 
And a sinking at the lower abdomen 
Begins the day with indifferent omen. 
And lo ! as he looked around uneasily. 
The sun ploughed the fog up and drove it asunder 
This way and that from the valley under ; 
And, looking through the court-yard arch, 
Down in the valley, what should meet him 
But a troop of Gypsies on their march ? 
No doubt with the annual gifts to greet him. 



70 The Flight of the Duchess 

Now, in your land, Gypsies reach you, only 350 

After reaching all lands beside ; 

North they go, South they go, trooping or lonely, 

And still, as they travel far and wide, 

Catch they and keep now a trace here, a trace there, 

That puts you in mind of a place here, a place there. 

But with us, I believe they rise out of the ground. 

And nowhere else, I take it, are found 

With the earth-tint yet so freshly embrowned : 

Born, no doubt, like insects which breed on 

The very fruit they are meant to feed on. 360 

For the earth — not a use to which they don't turn it, 

The ore that grows in the mountain's womb, 

Or the sand in the pits like a honeycomb, 

They sift and soften it, bake it and burn it — 

Whether they weld you, for instance, a snaffle 

With side-bars never a brute can baffle ; 

Or a lock that 's a puzzle of wards within wards ; 

Or, if your colt's forefoot inclines to curve inwards, 

Horseshoes they hammer which turn on a swivel 

And won't allow the hoof to shrivel. 370 

Then they cast bells like the shell of the winkle 

That keep a stout heart in the ram with their tinkle ; 

But the sand — they pinch and pound it like otters ; 

Commend me to Gypsy glass-makers and potters! 

Glasses they'll blow you, crystal-clear, 

Where just a faint cloud of rose shall appear, 

As if in pure water you dropped and let die 

A bruised black-blooded mulberry ; 

And that other sort, their crowning pride, 

With long white threads distinct inside, 380 

Like the lake-flower's fibrous roots which dangle 

Loose such a length and never tangle, 

Where the bold sword-lily cuts the clear waters, 

And the cup-lily couches with all the white daughters : 

Such are the works they put their hand to. 

The uses they turn and twist iron and sand to. 

And these made the troop, which our Duke saw sally 

Toward his castle from out of the valley, 

Men and women, like new-hatched spiders. 

Come out with the morning to greet our riders. 390 

And up they wound till they reached the ditch. 



The Flight of the Duchess 7 1 

Whereat all stopped save one, a witch 

That I knew, as she hobbled from the group, 

By her gait directly and her stoop, 

I, whom Jacynth was used to importune 

I'o let that same witch tell us our fortune, 

The oldest Gypsy then above ground ; 

And, sure as the autumn season came round. 

She paid us a visit for profit or pastime, 

And every time, as she swore', for the last time. 400 

And presently she was seen to sidle 

Up to the Duke till she touched his bridle, 

So that the horse of a sudden reared up 

As under its nose the old witch peered up 

With her worn-out eyes, or rather eye-holes 

Of no use now but to gather brine, 

And began a kind of level whine 

Such as they use to sing to their viols 

When their ditties they go grinding 

Up and down with nobody minding: 410 

And then, as of old, at the end of the humming 

Her usual presents were forthcoming 

— A dog-whistle blowing the fiercest of trebles, 

(Just a seashore stone holding a dozen fine pebbles,) 

Or a porcelain mouthpiece to screw on a pipe-end, — 

And so she awaited her annual stipend. 

But this time the Duke would scarcely vouchsafe 

A word in reply ; and in vain she felt 

With twitching fingers at her belt 

For the purse of sleek pine-marten pelt, 420 

Ready to put what he gave in her pouch safe, — 

Till, either to quicken his apprehension, 

Or possibly with an after-intention, 

She was come, she said, to pay her duty 

To the new Duchess, the youthful beauty. 

No sooner had she named his lady. 

Than a shine lit up the face so shady. 

And its smirk returned with a novel meaning — 

For it struck him, the babe just wanted weaning ; 

If one gave her a taste of what life was and sorrow, 430 

She, foolish to-day, would be wiser to-morrow ; 

And who so fit a teacher of trouble 

As this sordid crone bent well-nigh double ? 



72 The Flight of the Duchess 

So, glancing at her wolf-skin vesture, 

(If such it was, for they grow so hirsute 

That their own fleece serves for natural fur-suit) 

He was contrasting, 't was plain from his gesture, 

The life of the lady so flower-like and delicate 

With the loathsome squalor of this helicat. 

I, in brief, was the man the Duke beckoned 440 

From out of the throng, and while I drew near 

He told the crone — as I since have reckoned 

By the way he bent and spoke into her ear 

With circumspection and mystery — 

The main of the lady's history, 

Her frowardness and ingratitude : 

And for all the crone's submissive attitude 

I could see round her mouth the loose plaits tightening, 

And her brow with assenting intelligence brightening, 

As though she engaged with hearty goodwill 450 

Whatever he now might enjoin to fulfil, 

And promised the lady a thorough frightening. 

And so, just giving her a glimpse 

Of a purse, with the air of a man who imps 

The wing of the hawk that shall fetch the hern-shaw, 

He bade me take the Gypsy mother 

And set her telling some story or other 

Of hill or dale, oak-wood or fernshaw, 

To while away a weary hour 

For the lady left alone in her bower, 460 

Whose mind and body craved exertion 

And yet shrank from all better diversion. 

Then clapping heel to his horse, the mere curveter, 

Out rode the Duke, and after his hollo 

Horses and hounds swept, huntsman and servitor, 

And back I turned and bade the crone follow. 

And what makes me confident what 's to be told you 

Had all along been of this crone's devising. 

Is, that, on looking round sharply, behold you, 

There was a novelty quick as surprising : 470 

For, first, she had shot up a full head in stature. 

And her step kept pace with mine nor faltered, 

As if age had foregone its usurpature, 

And the ignoble mien was wholly altered. 



The Flight of the Duchess 73 

And the face looked quite of another nature, 

And the change reached too, whatever the change 

meant, 
Her shaggy wolf-skin cloak's arrangement : 
For where its tatters hung loose like sedges, 
Gold coins were glittering on the edges, 
Like the band-roll strung with tomans 480 

Which proves the veil a Persian woman's : 
And under her brow, like a snail's horns newly 
Come out as after the rain he paces. 
Two unmistakable eye-points, duly 
Live and aware, looked out of their places. 
So, we went and found Jacynth at the entry 
Of the lady's chamber standing sentry ; 
I told the command and produced my companion, 
And Jacynth rejoiced to admit any one, 
For since last night, by the same token, 490 

Not a single word had the lady spoken : 
They went in both to the presence together. 
While I in the balcony watched the weather. 

And now, what took place at the very first of all 

I cannot tell, as I never could learn it. 

Jacynth constantly wished a curse to fall 

On that little head of hers and burn it. 

If she knew how she came to drop so soundly 

Asleep of a sudden, and there continue 

The whole time sleeping as profoundly 500 

As one of the boars my father would pin you 

'Twixt the eyes where life holds garrison, 

— Jacynth, forgive me the comparison ! 

But where I begin my own narration 

Is a little after I took my station 

To breathe the fresh air from the balcony, 

And, having in those days a falcon eye, 

To follow the hunt through the open country. 

From where the bushes thinlier crested 

The hillocks, to a plain where 's not one tree. 510 

When, in a moment, my ear was arrested 

By — was it singing, or was it saying, 

Or a strange musical instrument playing 

In the chamber ? — and to be certain 



74 The Flight of the Duchess 

I pushed the lattice, pulled the curtain, 

And there lay Jacynth asleep, 

Yet as if a watch she tried to keep, 

In a rosy sleep along the floor 

With her head against the door ; 

While in the midst, on the seat of state, 5 20 

Was a queen — the Gypsy woman late, 

With head and face downbent, 

On the lady's head and face intent : 

For, coiled at her feet like a child at ease. 

The lady sat between her knees. 

And o'er them the lady's clasped hands met, 

And on those hands her chin was set. 

And her upturned face met the face of the crone 

Wherein the eyes had grown and grown 

As if she could double and quadruple 530 

At pleasure the play of either pupil 

— Very like, by her hands' slow fanning, 
As up and down like a gor-crow's flappers 
They moved to measure, or bell clappers. 
I said, " Is it blessing, is it banning, 

Do they applaud you or burlesque you — 

Those hands and fingers with no flesh on ? " 

But, just as I thought to spring in to the rescue, 

At once I was stopped by the lady's expression : 

For it was life her eyes were drinking 540 

From the crone's wide pair above unwinking, 

— Life's pure fire received without shrinking 
Into the heart and breast, whose heaving 
Told you no single drop they were leaving, 

— Life, that, filling her, passed redundant 
Into her very hair, back swerving 

Over each shoulder, loose and abundant. 

As her head thrown back showed the white throat 

curving ; 
And the very tresses shared in the pleasure, 
Moving to the mystic measure, 550 

Bounding as the bosom bounded. 
I stopped short, more and more confounded. 
As still her cheeks burned and eyes glistened, 
As she listened and she listened : 
When all at once a hand detained me, 



The Flight of the Ditchess 75 

The selfsame contagion gained me, 

And I kept time to the wondrous chime, 

Making out words and prose and rhyme, 

Till it seemed that the music furled 

Its wings like a task fulfilled, and dropped 560 

From under the words it first had propped, 

And left them midway in the world : 

Word took word as hand takes hand, 

I could hear at last, and understand, 

And when I held the unbroken thread, 

The Gypsy said : — 

'' And so at last we find my tribe. 

And so I set thee in the midst. 

And to one and all of them describe 

What thou saidst and what thou didst 570 

Our long and terrible journey through, 

And all thou art ready to say and do 

In the trials that remain : 

I trace them the vein and the other vein 

That meet on thy brow and part again, 

Making our rapid mystic mark ; 

And I bid my people prove and probe 

Each eye's profound and glorious globe 

Till they detect the kindred spark 

In those depths so dear and dark, 580 

Like the spots that snap and burst and flee, 

Circling over the midnight sea. 

And on that round young cheek of thine 

I make them recognize the tinge, 

As when of the costly scarlet wine 

They drip so much as will impinge 

And spread in a thinnest scale afloat 

One thick gold drop from the olive's coat 

Over a silver plate whose sheen 

Still through the mixture shall be seen. 590 

For so I prove thee, to one and all. 

Fit, when my people ope their breast, 

To see the sign, and hear the call. 

And take the vow, and stand the test 

Which adds one more child to the rest — 

When the breast is bare and the arms are wide, 



76 The Flight of the Duchess 

And the world is left outside. 

For there is probation to decree, 

And many and long must the trials be 

Thou shalt victoriously endure, 600 

If that brow is true and those eyes are sure ; 

Like a jewel-finder's fierce assay 

Of the prize he dug from its mountain tomb — 

Let once the vindicating ray 

Leap out amid the anxious gloom, 

And steel and fire have done their part 

And the prize falls on its finder's heart; 

So, trial after trial past, 

Wilt thou fall at the very last 

Breathless, half in trance 610 

With the thrill of the great deliverance, 

Into our arms forevermore ; 

And thou shalt know, those arms once curled 

About thee, what we knew before, 

How love is the only good in the world, 

Henceforth be loved as heart can love, 

Or brain devise, or hand approve! 

Stand up, look below, 

It is our life at thy feet we throw 

To step with into light and joy ; 620 

Not a power of life but we employ 

To satisfy thy nature's want ; 

Art thou the tree that props the plant, 

Or the climbing plant that seeks the tree — 

Canst thou help us, must we help thee ? 

If any two creatures grew into one, 

They would do more than the world has done ; 

Though each apart were never so weak. 

Ye vainly through the world should seek 

For the knowledge and the might 630 

Which in such union grew their right : 

So, to approach at least that end, 

And blend, — as much as may be, blend 

Thee with us or us with thee, — 

As climbing plant or propping tree. 

Shall some one deck thee, over and down, 

Up and about, with blossoms and leaves ? 

Fix his heart's fruit for thy garland-crown, 



The Flight of the Duchess 77 

Cling with his soul as the gourd-vine cleaves, 

Die on thy boughs and disappear 640 

While not a leaf of thine is sere ? 

Or is the other fate in store, 

And art thou fitted to adore, 

To give thy wondrous self away, 

And take a stronger nature's sway ? 

I foresee and could foretell 

Thy future portion, sure and well : 

But those passionate eyes speak true, speak true, 

Let them say what thou shalt do ! 

Only be sure thy daily life, 650 

In its peace or in its strife, 

Never shall be unobserved ; 

We pursue thy whole career, 

And hope for it, or doubt, or fear, — 

Lo, hast thou kept thy path or swerved, 

We are beside thee in all thy ways. 

With our blame, with our praise, 

Our shame to feel, our pride to show, 

Glad, angry — but indifferent, no! 

Whether it be thy lot to go, 660 

For the good of us all, where the haters meet 

In the crowded city's horrible street ; 

Or fhou step alone through the morass 

Where never sound yet was 

Save the dry quick clap of the stork's bill, 

For the air is still, and the water still. 

When the blue breast of the dipping coot 

Dives under, and all is mute. 

So, at the last shall come old age, 

Decrepit as befits that stage ; 670 

How else wouldst thou retire apart 

With the hoarded memories of thy heart, 

And gather all to the very least 

Of the fragments of life's earlier feast, 

Let fall through eagerness to find 

The crowning dainties yet behind ? 

Ponder on the entire past 

Laid together thus at last. 

When the twilight helps to fuse 

The first fresh with the faded hues, 680 



"jS The Flight of the Duchess 

And the outline of the whole, 

As round eve's shades their framework roll. 

Grandly fronts for once thy soul. 

And then as, 'mid the dark, a gleam 

Of yet another morning breaks, 

And, like the hand which ends a dream, 

Death, with the might of his sunbeam, 

Touches the flesh and the soul awakes, 

Then "— 

Ay, then, indeed, something would happen ! 
But what? For here her voice changed like a 
bird's ; [690 

There grew more of the music and less of the words ; 
Had Jacynth only been by me to clap pen 
To paper, and put you down every syllable 
With those clever clerkly fingers. 
Ail I 've forgotten as well as what lingers 
In this old brain of mine, that 's but ill able 
To give you even this poor version 
Of the speech I spoil, as it were, with stammering 
— More fault of those who had the hammering 
Of prosody into me and syntax, 700 

And did it, not with hobnails but tintacks ! 
But to return from this excursion, — 
Just, do you mark, when the song was sweetest, 
The peace most deep and the charm completest, 
There came, shall I say, a snap — 
And the charm vanished ! 
And my sense returned, so strangely banished, 
And, starting as from a nap, 
I knew the crone was bewitching my lady. 
With Jacynth asleep ; and but one spring made I 710 
Down from the casement, round to the portal, 
Another minute and I had entered, — 
When the door opened, and more than mortal 
Stood, with a face where to my mind centred 
All beauties I ever saw or shall see, 
The Duchess : I stopped as if struck by palsy. 
She was so different, happy and beautiful, 
I felt at once that all was best, 
And that I had nothing to do, for the rest, 



The Flight of the Duchess 79 

But wait her commands, obey and be dutiful. 720 

Not that, in fact, there was any commanding ; 

I saw the glory of her eye, 

And the brow's height and the breast's expanding, 

And I was hers to live or to die. 

As for finding what she wanted, 

You know God Almighty granted 

Such little signs should serve wild creatures 

To tell one another all their desires. 

So that each knows what his friend requires, 

And does its bidding without teachers. 730 

I preceded her ; the crone 

Followed silent and alone ; 

I spoke to her, but she merely jabbered 

In the old style ; both her eyes had slunk 

Back to their pits ; her stature shrunk ; 

In short, the soul in its body sunk 

Like a blade sent home to its scabbard. 

We descended, I preceding; 

Crossed the court with nobody heeding ; 

All the world was at the chase, 740 

The court-yard like a desert-place, 

The stable emptied of its small fry ; 

I saddled myself the very palfrey 

I remember patting while it carried her. 

The day she arrived and the Duke married her. 

And, do you know, though it 's easy deceiving 

One's self in such matters, I can't help believing 

The lady had not forgotten it either, 

And knew the poor devil, so much beneath her. 

Would have been only too glad for her service 750 

To dance on hot ploughshares like a Turk dervise, 

But, unable to pay proper duty where owing it. 

Was reduced to that pitiful method of showing it : 

For though the moment I began setting 

His saddle on my own nag of Berold's begetting, 

(Not that I meant to be obtrusive) 

She stopped me, while his rug was shifting, 

By a single rapid finger's lifting, 

And, with a gesture kind but conclusive, 

And a little shake of the head, refused me, — 760 

I say, although she never used me, 



8o The Flight of the Duchess 

Yet when she was mounted, the Gypsy behind her, 

And I ventured to remind her, 

I suppose with a voice of less steadiness 

Than usual, for my feeling exceeded me, 

— Something to the effect that I was in readiness 
Whenever God should please she needed me, — 
Then, do you know, her face looked down on me 
With a look that placed a crown on me, 

And she felt in her bosom, — mark, her bosom — 7 70 

And, as a flower-tree drops its blossom, 

Dropped me ... ah, had it been a purse 

Of silver, my friend, or gold that 's worse, 

Why, you see, as soon as I found myself 

So understood, — that a true heart so may gain 

Such a reward, — I should have gone home again, 

Kissed Jacynth, and soberly drowned myself ! 

It was a little plait of hair 

Such as friends in a convent make 

To wear, each for the other's sake, — 780 

This, see, which at my breast I wear, 

Ever did (rather to Jacynth's grudgment), 

And ever shall, till the Day of Judgment. 

And then, — and then, — to cut short, — this is idle, 

These are feeUngs it is not good to foster, — 

I pushed the gate wide, she shook the bridle, 

And the palfrey bounded — and so we lost her. 

When the liquor 's out why clink the cannikin ? 

I did think to describe you the panic in 

The redoubtable breast of our master the manni- 

kin, 790 

And what was the pitch of his mother's yellowness, 
How she turned as a shark to snap the sparerib 
Clean off, sailors say, from a pearl-diving Carib, 
When she heard what she called the flight of the 

feloness 

— But it seems such child's play. 

What they said and did with the lady away ! 
And to dance on, when we 've lost the music, 
Always made me — and no doubt makes you — sick. 
Nay, to my mind, the world's face looked so stern 
As that sweet form disappeared through the pos- 
tern, 800 



The Flight of the Duchess 8 1 

She that kept it in constant good-humor, 

It ought to have stopped j there seemed nothing 

to do more. 
But the world thought otherwise and went on, 
And my head's one that its spite was spent on : 
Thirty years are fled since that morning, 
And with them all my head's adorning. 
Nor did the old Duchess die outright, 
As you expect, of suppressed spite, 
The natural end of every adder 

Not suffered to empty its poison-bladder : 8io 

But she and her son agreed, I take it, 
That no one should touch on the story to wake it 
For the wound in the Duke's pride rankled fiery ; 
So they made no search and small inquiry — 
And when fresh Gypsies have paid us a visit, I *ve 
Noticed the couple were never inquisitive, 
But told them they 're folks the Duke don't want here, 
And bade them make haste and cross the frontier. 
Brief, the Duchess was gone and the Duke was glad 

of it, 
And the old one was in the young one's stead, 820 
And took, in her place, the household's head. 
And a blessed time the household had of it ! 
And were I not, as a man may say, cautious 
How I trench, more than needs, on the nauseous, 
I could favor you with sundry touches 
Of the paint-smutches with which the Duchess 
Heightened the mellowness of her cheek's yellowness 
(To get on faster) until at last her 
Cheek grew to be one master-plaster 
Of mucus and fucus from mere use of ceruse : 830 
In short, she grew from scalp to udder 
Just the object to make you shudder. 

You 're my friend — 

What a thing friendship is, world without end ! 
How it gives the heart and soul a stir-up, 
As if somebody broached you a glorious runlet. 
And poured out, all lovelily, sparklingly, sunlit, 
Our green Moldavia, the streaky syrup, 
Cotnar as old as the time of the Druids — 
6 



82 The Flight of the Duchess 

Friendship may match with that monarch of fluids ; 840 
Each supples a dry brain, fills you its ins-and-outs, 
Gives your life's hour-glass a shake when the thin sand 

doubts 
Whether to run on or stop short, and guarantees 
Age is not all made of stark sloth and arrant ease. 
I have seen my little lady once more, 
Jacynth, the Gypsy, Berold, and the rest of it, 
For to me spoke the Duke, as I told you before ; 
I always wanted to make a clean breast of it : 
And now it is made — why, my heart's blood, that 

went trickle, 
Trickle, but anon, in such muddy driblets, 850 

Is pumped up brisk now, through the main ventricle, 
And genially floats me about the giblets. 
I '11 tell you what I intend to do : 
I must see this fellow his sad life through — 
He is our Duke, after all, 
And I, as he says, but a serf and thrall. 
My father was born here, and I inherit 
His fame, a chain he bound his son with ; 
Could I pay in a lump, I should prefer it, 
But there 's no mine to blow up and get done 

with : 860 

So I must stay till the end of the chapter. 
For, as to our middle-age-manners-adapter, 
Be it a thing to be glad on or sorry on, 
Some day or other, his head in a morion 
And breast in a hauberk, his heels he 'U kick up, 
Slain by an onslaught fierce of hiccup. 
And then, when red doth the sword of our Duke rust, 
And its leathern sheath lie o'ergrown with a blue crust, 
Then I shall scrape together my earnings ; 
For, you see, in the churchyard Jacynth reposes, 870 
And our children all went the way of the roses : 
It 's a long lane that knows no turnings. 
One needs but little tackle to travel in ; 
So, just one stout cloak shall I indue : 
And for a staff, what beats the javelin 
With which his boars my father pinned you ? 
And then, for a purpose you shall hear presently, 
Taking some Cotnar, a tight plump skinful, 



The Flight of the Duchess 83 

I shall go journeying, who but I, pleasantly ! 

Sorrow is vain and despondency sinful. 880 

What 's a man's age ? He must hurry more, that 's all ; 

Cram in a day what his youth took a year to hold : 

When we mind labor, then only, we 're too old — 

What age had Methusalem when he begat Saul ? 

And at last, as its haven some buffeted ship sees 

(Come all the way from the north-parts with sperm oil), 

I hope to get safely out of the turmoil 

And arrive one day at the land of the Gypsies, 

And find my lady, or hear the last news of her 

From some old thief and son of Lucifer, 890 

His forehead chapleted green with wreathy hop 

Sunburned all over like an ^thiop. 

And when my Cotnar begins to operate, 

And the tongue of the rogue to run at a proper rate, 

And our wine-skin, tight once, shows each flaccid dent, 

I shall drop in with — as if by accident — 

" You never knew, then, how it all ended, 

What fortune, good or bad, attended 

The litde lady your Queen befriended ? " 

— And when that's told me, what's remaining? 900 
This world 's too hard for my explaining. 

The same wise judge of matters equine, 

Who still preferred some slim four-year-old 

To the big-boned stock of mighty Berold, 

And, for strong Cotnar, drank French weak wine, 

He also must be such a lady's scorner ! 

Smooth Jacob still robs homely Esau : 

Now up, now down, the world's one see-saw. 

— So, I shall find out some snug corner 

Under a hedge, like Orson the wood-knight, 910 

Turn myself round and bid the world good-night ; 
And sleep a sound sleep till the trumpet's blowing 
Wakes me (unless priests cheat us laymen) 
To a world where will be no further throwing 
Pearls before swine that can't value them. 
Amen ! 



84 The Boy and the Angel 

EARTH'S IMMORTALITIES 
(184s) 

I. FAME 

See, as the prettiest graves will do in time, 
Our poet's wants the freshness of its prime ; 
Spite of the sexton's browsing horse, the sods 
Have struggled through its binding osier rods ; 
Headstone and half-sunk footstone lean awry, 
Wanting the brick-work promised by-and-by ; 
How the minute gray lichens, plate o'er plate, 
Have softened down the crisp-cut name and date ! 



THE BOY AND THE ANGEL 

{1845) 

Morning, evening, noon and night, 
" Praise God! " sang Theocrite. 

Then to his poor trade he turned, 
Whereby the daily meal was earned. 

Hard he labored, long and well ; 
O'er his work the boy's curls fell. 

But ever, at each period. 

He stopped and sang, " Praise God !" 

Then back again his curls he threw, 

And cheerful turned to work anew. 10 

Said Blaise, the hstening monk, " Well done ; 
I doubt not thou art heard, my son : 

" As well as if thy voice to-day 

Were praising God, the Pope's great way. 



The Boy and the Afigel 85 

" This Easter Day, the Pope at Rome 
Praises God from Peter's dome." 

Said Theocrite, " Would God that I 
Might praise him that great way, and die ! " 

Night passed, day shone, 

And Theocrite was gone. 20 

With God a day endures alway, 
A thousand years are but a day. 

God said in heaven, ' ' Nor day nor night 
Now brings the voice of ray deh'ght." 

Then Gabriel, like a rainbow's birth, 
Spread his wings and sank to earth ; 

Entered, in flesh, the empty cell, 

Lived there, and played the craftsman well ; 

And morning, evening, noon and night, 

Praised God in place of Theocrite. 30 

And from a boy, to youth he grew ; 
The man put off the stripling's hue : 

The man matured and fell away 
Into the season of decay ; 

And ever o'er the trade he bent, 
And ever lived on earth content. 

(He did God's will; to him, all one 
If on the earth or in the sun.) 

God said, " A praise is in mine ear ; 

There is no doubt in it, no fear : 40 

" So sing old worlds, and so 

New worlds that from my footstool go. 



86 The Boy and the Angel 

" Clearer loves sound other ways : 
I miss my little human praise." 

Then forth sprang Gabriel's wings, off fell 
The flesh disguise, remained the cell. 

'T was Easter Day : he flew to Rome, 
And paused above Saint Peter's dome. 

In tiring-room close by 

The great outer gallery, 50 

With holy vestments dight, 
Stood the new Pope, Theocrite. 

And all his past career 
Came back upon him clear. 

Since, when a boy, he plied his trade, 
Till on his life the sickness weighed ; 

And in his cell, when death drew near. 
An angel in a dream brought cheer : 

And, rising from the sickness drear, 

He grew a priest, and now stood here. 60 

To the East with praise he turned, 
And on his sight the angel burned. 

" I bore thee from thy craftsman's cell. 
And set thee here ; I did not well. 

" Vainly I left my angel-sphere, 
Vain was thy dream of many a year. 

"Thy voice's praise seemed weak ; it dropped — 
Creation's chorus stopped ! 

" Go back and praise again 

The early way, while I remain. 70 



The Glove Sy 



" With that weak voice of our disdain, 
Take up creation's pausing strain. 

" Back to the cell and poor employ : 
Resume the craftsman and the boy ! " 

Theocrite grew old at home ; 

A new Pope dwelt in Peter's dome. 

One vanished as the other died : 
They sought God side by side. 



THE GLOVE 

, (Peter Ronsard loquitur) 

(1S45) 

" Heigho," yawned one day King Francis, 

" Distance all value enhances ! 

When a man 's busy, why, leisure 

Strikes him as wonderful pleasure : 

'Faith, and at leisure once is he, 

Straightway he wants to be busy. 

Here we 've got peace ; and aghast I 'm 

Caught thinking war the true pastime. 

Is there a reason in metre ? 

Give us your speech, master Peter ! " 

I who, if mortal dare say so, 

Ne'er am at loss with my Naso, 

''Sire," I replied, "joys prove cloudlets: 

Men are the merest Ixions " — 

Here the King whistled aloud, " Let 's 

— Heigho — go look at our lions ! " 

Such are the sorrowful chances 

If you talk fine to King Francis. 

And so, to the courtyard proceeding, 
Our company, Francis was leading, 
Increased by new followers tenfold 
Before he arrived at the penfold ; 



88 The Glove 

Lords, ladies, like clouds which bedizen 

At sunset the western horizon. 

And Sir De Lorge pressed 'mid the foremost 

With the dame he professed to adore most. 

Oh, what a face ! One by fits eyed 

Her, and the horrible pitside ; 

For the penfold surrounded a hollow 

Which led where the eye scarce dared follow, 30 

And shelved to the chamber secluded 

Where Bluebeard, the great lion, brooded. 

The King hailed his keeper, an Arab 

As glossy and black as a scarab, 

And bade him make sport and at once stir 

Up and out of his den the old monster. 

They opened a hole in the wire-work 

Across it, and dropped there a firework, 

And fled ; one's heart's beating redoubled ; 

A pause, while the pit's mouth was troubled, 40 

The blackness and silence so utter. 

By the firework's slow sparkling and sputter ; 

Then earth in a sudden contortion 

Gave out to our gaze her abortion. 

Such a brute ! Were I friend Clement Marot 

(Whose experience of nature 's but narrow, 

And whose faculties move in no small mist 

When he versifies David the Psalmist) 

I should study that brute to describe you 

Ilium yuda Leonem de Tribu. 50 

One's whole blood grew curdling and creepy 

To see the black mane, vast and heapy, 

The tail in the air stiff and straining, 

The wide eyes, nor waxing nor waning, 

As over the barrier which bounded 

His platform, and us who surrounded 

The barrier, they reached and tliey rested 

On space that might stand him in best stead : 

For who knew, he thought, what the amazement, 

The eruption of clatter and blaze meant, 60 

And if, in this minute of wonder, 

No outlet, 'mid lightning and thunder, 

Lay broad, and, his shackles all shivered. 



The Glove 89 

The lion at last was delivered ? 

Ay, that was the open sky o'erhead ! 

And you saw by the flash on his forehead, 

By the hope in those eyes wide and steady, 

He was leagues in the desert already, 

Driving the flocks up the mountain, 

Or, catlike, couched hard by the fountain 70 

To waylay the date-gathering negress : 

So guarded he entrance or egress. 

" How he stands ! " quoth the King : " we may well swear, 

(No novice, we 've won our spurs elsewhere 

And so can afford the confession,) 

We exercise wholesome discretion 

In keeping aloof from his threshold, 

Once hold you, those jaws want no fresh hold, 

Their first would too pleasantly purloin 

The visitor's brisket or surloin : 80 

But who 's he would prove so fool-hardy ? 

Not the best man of Marignan, pardie ! " 

The sentence no sooner was uttered. 

Than over the rails a glove fluttered, 

Fell close to the lion, and rested : 

The dame 't was, who flung it and jested 

With life so, De Lorge had been wooing 

For months past ; he sat there pursuing 

His suit, weighing out with nonchalance 

Fine speeches, like gold from a balance. 90 

Sound the trumpet, no true knight 's a tarrier ! 
De Lorge made one leap at the barrier. 
Walked straight to the glove, — while the lion 
Ne'er moved, kept his far-reaching eye on 
The palm-tree-edged desert-spring's sapphire, 
And the musky oiled skin of the Kaffir, — 
Picked it up, and as calmly retreated, 
Leaped back where the lady was seated, 
And full in the face of its owner 
Flung the glove. 

" Your heart's queen, you dethrone her? 100 

So should I ! " — cried the King — " 't was mere vanity, 



90 The Glove 

Not love, set that task to humanity ! " 
Lords and ladies alike turned with loathing 
From such a proved wolf in sheep's clothing. 

Not so, I ; for I caught an expression 

In her brow's undisturbed self-possession 

Amid the Court's scoffing and merriment, — 

As if from no pleasing experiment 

She rose, yet of pain not much heedful 

So long as the process was needful, — no 

As if she had tried in a crucible, 

To what " speeches like gold " were reducible, 

And, finding the finest prove copper, 

Felt the smoke in her face was but proper ; 

To know what she hod not to trust to, 

Was worth all the ashes and dust too. 

She went out 'mid hooting and laughter ; 

Clement Marot stayed ; I followed after, 

And asked, as a grace, what it all meant? 

If she wished not the rash deed's recallment? 120 

" For I " — so I spoke — " am a poet : 

Human nature, — behooves that I know it ! " 

She told me, " Too long had I heard 

Of the deed proved alone by the word : 

For my love — what De Lorge would not dare ! 

With my scorn — what De Lorge could compare ! 

And the endless descriptions of death 

He would brave when my lip formed a breath, 

I must reckon as braved, or, of course. 

Doubt his word and moreover, perforce, 130 

For such gifts as no lady could spurn, 

Must offer my love in return. 

When I looked on your lion, it brought 

All the dangers at once to my thought. 

Encountered by all sorts of men, 

Before he was lodged in his den, — 

From the poor slave whose club or bare hands 

Dug the trap, set the snare on the sands. 

With no King and no Court to applaud. 

By no shame, should he shrink, overawed, 140 

Yet to capture the creature made shift, 



The Glove 91 

That his rude boys might laugh at the gift, 

— To the page who last leaped o'er the fence 

Of the pit, on no greater pretence 

Than to get back the bonnet he dropped, 

Lest his pay for a week should be stopped. 

So, wiser I judged it to make 

One trial what ' death for my sake ' 

Really meant, while the power was yet mine, 

Than to wait until time should define 150 

Such a phrase not so simply as I, 

Who took it to mean just ' to die.' 

The blow a glove gives is but weak : 

Does the mark yet discolor my cheek ? 

But when the heart suffers a blow, 

Will the pain pass so soon, do you know ? " 

I looked, as away she was sweeping, 

And saw a youth eagerly keeping 

As close as he dared to the doorway. 

No doubt that a noble should more weigh 160 

His life than befits a plebeian ; 

And yet, had our brute been Nemean — 

(I judge by a certain calm fervor 

The youth stepped with, forward to serve her) 

— He 'd have scarce thought you did him the worst 

turn 
If you whispered, " Friend, what you 'd get, first 

earn ! " 
And when, shortly after, she carried 
Her shame from the Court, and they married, 
To that marriage some happiness, maugre 
The voice of the Court, I dared augur. 170 

For De Lorge, he made women with men vie, 

Those in wonder and praise, these in envy ; 

And in short stood so plain a head taller 

That he wooed and won . . . how do you call her ? 

The beauty, that rose in the sequel 

To the King's love, who loved her a week well. 

And 't was noticed he never would honor 

De Lorge (who looked daggers upon her) 

With the easy commission of stretching 



92 Love Among the Ruins 

His legs in the service, and fetching i8o 

His wife, from her chamber, those straying 

Sad gloves she was always mislaying, 

While the King took the closet to chat in, — 

But of course this adventure came pat in. 

And never the King told the story, 

How bringing a glove brought such glory, 

But the wife smiled — " His nerves are grown firmer : 

Mine he brings now and utters no murmur." 

Veiiienti occurrite morbo I 
With which moral I drop my theorbo. igo 



LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 

(185s) 

Where the quiet-colored end of evening smiles 

Miles and miles 
On the solitary pastures where our sheep, 

Half-asleep, 
Tinkle homeward through the twilight, stray or stop 

As they crop — 
Was the site once of a city great and gay, 

(So they say) 
Of our country's very capital, its prince 

Ages since 10 

Held his court in, gathered councils, wielding far 

Peace or war. 

Now, — the country does not even boast a tree. 

As you see, 
To distinguish slopes of verdure, certain rills 

From the hills 
Intersect and give a name to, (else they run 

Into one,) 
Where the domed and daring palace shot its spires 

Up like fires 20 

O'er the hundred-gated circuit of a wall 

Bounding all, 



Love Among the Ruins 93 

Made of marble, men might march on nor be pressed, 
Twelve abreast. 

And such plenty and perfection, see, of grass 

Never was ! 
Such a carpet as, this summer-time, o'erspreads 

And embeds 
Every vestige of the city, guessed alone, 

Stock or stone — 30 

Where a multitude of men breathed joy and woe 

Long ago ; 
Lust of glory pricked their hearts up, dread of shame 

Struck them tame : 
And that glory and that shame alike, the gold 

Bought and sold. 

Now, — the single little turret that remains 

On the plains, 
By the caper overrooted, by the gourd 

Overscored, 40 

While the patching houseleek's head of blossom winks 

Through the chinks — 
Marks the basement whence a tower in ancient time 

Sprang sublime, 
And a burning ring, all round, the chariots traced 

As they raced, 
And the monarch and his minions and his dames 

Viewed th» games. 

And I know, while thus the quiet-colored eve 

Smiles to leave 50 

To their folding, all our many-tinkling fleece 

In such peace. 
And the slopes and rills in undistinguished gray 

Melt away — ■ 
That a girl with eager eyes and yellow hair 

Waits me there 
In the turret whence the charioteers caught soul 

For the goal, 
When the king looked, where she looks now, breath- 
less, dumb 

Till I come. 60 



94 A Lovers' Quarrel 

But he looked upon the city, every side, 

Far and wide, 
All the mountains topped with temples, all the glades' 

Colonnades, 
All the causeys, bridges, aqueducts, — and then. 

All the men ! 
When I do come, she will speak not, she will stand, 

Either hand 
On my shoulder, give her eyes the first embrace 

Of my face, 70 

Ere we rush, ere we extinguish sight and speech 

Each on each. 

In one year they sent a million fighters forth 

South and North, 
And they built their gods a brazen pillar high 

As the sky, 
Yet reserved a thousand chariots in full force — 

Gold, of course ! 
Oh heart ! oh blood that freezes, blood that burns ! 

Earth's returns 80 

For whole centuries of folly, noise, and sin ! 

Shut them in. 
With their triumphs and their glories and the rest ! 

Love is best. 



A LOVERS' QUARREL 

(^855) 

Oh, what a dawn of day ! 

How the March sun feels like May! 

All is blue again 

After last night's rain, 
And the South dries the hawthorn-spray. 

Only, my Love 's away ! 
I 'd as lief that the blue were gray. 

Runnels, which rillets swell. 
Must be dancing down the dell, 

With a foaming head 10 

On the beryl bed 



A Lovers Quarrel 95 

Paven smooth as a hermit's cell ; 

Each with a tale to tell, 
Could my Love but attend as well. 

Dearest, three months ago ! 

When we lived blocked-up with snow, — 

When the wind would edge 

In and in his wedge, 
In, as far as the point could go — 

Not to our ingle, though, 20 

Where we loved each the other so ! 

Laughs with so little cause ! 
We devised games out of straws, 

We would try and trace 

One another's face 
In the ash, as an artist draws ; 

Free on each other's flaws, 
How we chattered like two church daws ! 

What 's in the " Times " ? — a scold 

At the Emperor deep and cold ; 30 

He has taken a bride 

To his gruesome side, 
That 's as fair as himself is bold : ' 

There they sit ermine-stoled, 
And she powders her hair with gold. 

Fancy the Pampas' sheen ! 

Miles and miles of gold and green 

Where the sunflowers blow 

In a solid glow, 
And — to break now and then the screen — 40 

Black neck and eyeballs keen, 
Up a wild horse leaps between ! 

Try, will our table turn ? 

Lay your hands there light, and yearn 

Till the yearning slips 

Through the finger-tips 



96 A Lovers Quarrel 

In a fire which a few discern, 
And a very few feel burn, 
And the rest, they may live and learn ! 



Then we would up and pace, 50 

For a change, about the place, 

Each with arm o'er neck : 

'T is our quarter-deck, 
We are seamen in woeful case. 

Help in the ocean-space ! 
Or, if no help, we '11 embrace. 

See, how she looks now, dressed 
In a sledging-cap and vest ! 

'T is a huge fur cloak — 

Like a reindeer's yoke 60 

Falls the lappet along the breast : 

Sleeves for her arms to rest. 
Or to hang, as my Love likes best. 

Teach me to flirt a fan 
As the Spanish ladies can. 

Or I tint your lip 

With a burnt stick's tip 
And you turn into such a man ! 

Just the two spots that span 
Half the bill of the young male swan. 70 

Dearest, three months ago 
When the mesmerizer Snow 

With his hand's first sweep 

Put the earth to sleep : 
'T was a time when the heart could show 

All — how was earth to know, 
'Neath the mute hand's to-and-fro ? 

Dearest, three months ago 
When we loved each other so, 

Lived and loved the same 80 

Till an evening came 



A Lovers Quarrel 97 

When a shaft from the devil's bow 

Pierced to our ingle-glow, 
And the friends were friend and foe ! 

Not from the heart beneath — 
' T was a bubble born of breath, 

Neither sneer nor vaunt, 

Nor reproach nor taunt. 
See a word, how it severeth ! 

Oh, power of life and death 90 

In the tongue, as the Preacher saith ! 

Woman, and will you cast, 
For a word, quite off at last 

Me, your own, your You, — 

Since, as truth is true, 
I was You all the happy past — 

Me do you leave aghast 
With the memories We amassed? 

Love, if you knew the light 

That your soul casts in my sight, 100 

How I look to you 

For the pure and true. 
And the beauteous and the right, — 

Bear with a moment's spite 
When a mere mote threats the white ! 

What of a hasty word ? 

Is the fleshly heart not stirred 

By a worm's pin-prick 

Where its roots are quick? 
See the eye, by a fly's foot blurred — no 

Ear, when a straw is heard 
Scratch the brain's coat of curd ! 

Foul be the world or fair 
More or less, how can I care ? 

'T is the world the same 

For my praise or blame, 
7 



98 A Lovers^ Quarrel 

And endurance is easy there. 

Wrong in the one thing rare — 
Oh, it is hard to bear ! 

Here 's the spring back or close, 120 

When the ahnond-blossom blows ; 

We shall have the word 

In a minor third, 
There is none but the cuckoo knows : 

Heaps of the guelder-rose ! 
I must bear with it, I suppose. 

Could but November come, 
Were the noisy birds struck dumb 

At the warning slash 

Of his driver's-lash — 130 

I would laugh like the valiant Thumb 

Facing the castle glum 
And the giant's fee-faw-fum ! 

Then, were the world well stripped 
Of the gear wherein equipped 

We can stand apart, 

Heart dispense with heart 
In the sun, with the flowers unnipped, — 

Oh, the world's hangings ripped. 
We were both in a bare-walled crypt! 140 

Each in the crypt would cry, 

" But one freezes here ! and why? 

When a heart, as chill, 

At my own would thrill 
Back to life, and its fires out-fly ? 

Heart, shall we live or die ? 
The rest, . . . settle by and by ! " 

So, she 'd efface the score. 
And forgive me as before. 

It is twelve o'clock : 150 

I shall hear her knock 
In the worst of a storm's uproar, 

I shall pull her through the door, 
I shall have her for evermore ! 



Evelyn Hope 99 

EVELYN HOPE 

(i8ss) 

Beautiful Evelyn Hope is dead ! 

Sit and watch by her side an hour. 
That is her book-shelf, this her bed ; 

She plucked that piece of geranium-flower, 
Beginning to die too, in the glass ; 

Little has yet been changed, I think : 
The shutters are shut, no light may pass 

Save two long rays through the hinge's chink. 

Sixteen years old when she died ! 

Perhaps she had scarcely heard my name ; 10 

It was not her time to love ; beside, 

Her life had many a hope and aim, 
Duties enough and little cares, 

And now was quiet, now astir, 
Till God's hand beckoned unawares, — 

And the sweet white brow is all of her. 

Is it too late then, Evelyn Hope? 

What, your soul was pure and true. 
The good stars met in your horoscope, 

Made you of spirit, fire and dew — 20 

And, just because I was thrice as old 

And our paths in the world diverged so wide, 
Each was naught to each, must I be told ? 

We were fellow mortals, naught beside ? 

No, indeed ! for God above 

Is great to grant, as mighty to make, 
And creates the love to reward the love : 

I claim you still, for my own love's sake ! 
Delayed it may be for more lives yet. 

Through worlds I shall traverse not a few : 30 

Much is to learn, much to forget, 

Ere the time be come for taking you. 



lOO .Evelyn Hope 

But the time will come, — at last it will, 

When, Evelyn Hope, what meant (I shall say) 
In the lower earth, in the years long still, 

That body and soul so pure and gay ? 
Why your hair was amber, I shall divine, 

And your mouth of your own geranium's red — 
And what you would do with me, in fine, 

In the new life come in the old one's stead. 40 

I have lived (I shall say) so much since then, 

Given up myself so many times, 
Gained me the gains of various men, 

Ransacked the ages, spoiled the climes ; 
Yet one thing, one, in my soul's full scope, 

Either I missed or itself missed me : 
And I want and find you, Evelyn Hope ! 

What is the issue? let us see ! 

I loved you, Evelyn, all the while ! 

My heart seemed full as it could hold ; 50 

There was place and to spare for the frank young 
smile, 

And the red young mouth, and the hair's young 
gold. 
So, hush, — I will give you this leaf to keep : 

See, I shut it inside the sweet cold hand ! 
There, that is our secret : go to sleep ! 

You will wake, and remember, and understand. 



up at a Villa — Down m the City loi 



UP AT A VILLA — DOWN IN THE CITY 

(as distinguished by an ITALIAN PERSON OF 

quality) 

(isss) 

Had I but plenty of money, money enough and to 
spare, 

The house for me, no doubt, were a house in the city- 
square ; 

Ah, such a Hfe, such a Hfe, as one leads at the window 
there ! 

Something to see, by Bacchus, something to hear, at 

least ! 
There, the whole day long, one's life is a perfect feast ; 
While up at a villa one lives, I maintain it, no more 

than a beast. 

Well now, look at our villa ! stuck like the horn of a 

bull 
Just on a mountain-edge as bare as the creature's skull, 
Save a mere shag of a bush with hardly a leaf to pull ! 
— I scratch my own, sometimes, to see if the hair 's 

turned wool. lo 



But the city, oh the city — the square with the houses ! 
Why? 

They are stone-faced, white as a curd, there 's some- 
thing to take the eye ! 

Houses in four straight lines, not a single front awry ; 

You watch who crosses and gossips, who saunters, who 
hurries by ; 

Green blinds, as a matter of course, to draw when the 
sun gets high ; 

And the shops with fanciful signs, which are painted 
properly. 



I02 Up at a Villa — Down in the City 

What of a villa ? Though winter be over in March by 

rights, 
'Tis May perhaps ere the snow shall have withered 

well off the heights : 
You've the brown ploughed land before, where the 

oxen steam and wheeze, 
And the hills over-smoked behind by the faint gray 

olive-trees. 20 



Is it better in May, I ask you ? You 've summer all 

at once ; 
In a day he leaps complete with a few strong April 

suns. 
'Mid the sharp short emerald wheat, scarce risen three 

fingers well. 
The wild tulip, at end of its tube, blows out its great 

red bell 
Like a thin clear bubble of blood, for the children to 

pick and sell. 

Is it ever hot in the square ? There 's a fountain to 

spout and splash ! 
In the shade it sings and springs ; in the shine such 

foambows flash 
On the horses with curling fish-tails, that prance and 

paddle and pash 
Round the lady atop in her conch — fifty gazers do 

not abash. 
Though all that she wears is some weeds round her 

waist in a sort of sash. 30 

All the year long at the villa, nothing to see though 

you linger, 
Except yon cypress that points like death's lean lifted 

forefinger. 
Some think fireflies pretty, when they mix i' the corn 

and mingle. 
Or thrid the stinking hemp till the stalks of it seem 

a-tingle. 
Late August or early September, the stunning cicala is 

shrill, 



up at a Villa — Down in the City 103 

And the bees keep their tiresome whine round the 

resinous firs on the hill. 
Enough of the seasons, — I spare you the months of 

the fever and chill. 



Ere you open your eyes in the city, the blessed church- 
bells begin : 

No sooner the bells leave off than the diligence rattles 
in : 

You get the pick of the news, and it costs you never 
a pin. 40 

By and by there 's the travelling doctor gives pills, lets 
blood, draws teeth ; 

Or the Pulcinello-trurapet breaks up the market be- 
neath. 

At the post-ofifice such a scene picture — the new play, 
piping hot ! 

And a notice how, only this morning, three liberal 
thieves were shot. 

Above it, behold the Archbishop's most fatherly of 
rebukes, 

And beneath, with his crown and his lion, some little 
new law of the Duke's ! 

Or a sonnet with flowery marge, to the Reverend Don 
So-and-so, 

Who is Dante, Boccaccio, Petrarca, Saint Jerome, and 
Cicero, 

"And moreover," (the sonnet goes rhyming,) "the 
skirts of Saint Paul has reached. 

Having preached us those six Lent-lectures more unc- 
tuous than ever he preached." 50 

Noon strikes, — here sweeps the procession! our Lady 
borne smihng and smart 

With a pink gauze gown all spangles, and seven swords 
stuck in her heart ! 

Bang-whang-whang goes the drum, tootk-te-tootle the 
fife; 

No keeping one's haunches still : it 's the greatest 
pleasure in life. 



I04 Up at a Villa — Down in the City 

But bless you, it's dear — it's dear! fowls, wine, at 

double the rate. 
They have clapped a new tax upon salt, and what oil 

pays passing the gate 
It 's a horror to think of. And so, the villa for me, not 

the city ! 
Beggars can scarcely be choosers : but still — ah, the 

pity, the pity ! 
Look, two and two go the priests, then the monks with 

cowls and sandals, 
And the penitents dressed in white shirts, a-holding the 

yellow candles ; 60 

One, he carries a flag up straight, and another a cross 

with handles, 
And the Duke's guard brings up the rear, for the better 

prevention of scandals : 
Bang-whang-zuhang goes the drum, tootle-te-tootk the 

fife. 
Oh, a day in the city-square, there is no such pleasure 

in life ! 



Fra Lippo Lippi 105 

FRA LIPPO LIPPI 

(1855) 

I am poor brother Lippo, by your leave! 
You need not clap your torches to ray face. 
Zooks, what 's to blame? you think you see a monk! 
What, 't is past midnight, and you go the rounds, 
And here you catch me at an alley's end 
Where sportive ladies leave their doors ajar? 
The Carmine 's my cloister : hunt it up, 
Do, — harry out, if you must show your zeal, 
Whatever rat, there, haps on his wrong hole, 
And nip each softling of a wee white mouse, 10 

Weke^ weke, that 's crept to keep him company ! 
Aha, you know your betters ! Then you '11 take 
Your hand away that 's fiddHng on my throat, 
And please to know me hkewise. Who am I ? 
Why, one, sir, who is lodging with a friend 
Three streets off — he's a certain . . . how d'ye call? 
Master — a . . . Cosimo of the Medici, 
I' the house that caps the corner. Boh ! you were 

best! 
Remember and tell me, the day you 're hanged, 
How you affected such a gullet's-gripe ! 20 

But you, sir, it concerns you that your knaves 
Pick up a manner nor discredit you : 
Zooks, are we pilchards, that they sweep the streets 
And count fair prize what comes into their net ? 
He 's Judas to a tittle, that man is ! 
Just such a face ! Why, sir, you make amends. 
Lord, I 'm not angry ! Bid your hangdogs go 
Drink out this quarter-florin to the health 
Of the munificent House that harbors me 
(And many more beside, lads! more beside!) 30 

And all 's come square again. I 'd like his face — 
His, elbowing on his comrade in the door 
With the pike and lantern — for the slave that holds 
John Baptist's head a-dangle by the hair 
With one hand (" Look you, now," as who should say) 



io6 Fra Lippo Lippi 

And his weapon in the other, yet unwiped ! 

It 's not your chance to have a bit of chalk, 

A wood-coal, or the like ? or you should see ! 

Yes, I 'm the painter, since you style me so. 

What, brother Lippo's doings, up and down, 40 

You know them and they take you? like enough! 

I saw the proper twinkle in your eye — 

'Tell you, I liked your looks at very first. 

Let 's sit and set things straight now, hip to haunch. 

Here's spring come, and the nights one makes up 

bands 
To roam the town and sing out carnival, 
And I 've been three weeks shut within my mew, 
A-painting for the great man, saints and saints 
And saints again. I could not paint all night — 
Ouf! I leaned out of window for fresh air. 50 

There came a hurry of feet and little feet, 
A sweep of lute-strings, laughs, and whifts of song, — 
Flower <?' the broom, 

Take away love^ and our earth is a tomb I 
Flower <?' the quince^ 

J let Lisa go, and what good hi life since ? 
Flower d the thyme — and so on. Round they went. 
Scarce had they turned the corner when a titter 
Like the skipping of rabbits by moonlight, — three 

slim shapes. 
And a face that looked up . . . zooks, sir, flesh and 

blood, 60 

That 's all I 'm made of ! Into shreds it went, 
Curtain and counterpane and coverlet, 
All the bed-furniture — a dozen knots, 
There was a ladder ! Down I let myself, 
Hands and feet scrambling somehow, and so dropped, 
And after them. I came up with the fun 
Hard by Saint Laurence, hail fellow, well met, — 
Flower d the rose, 

If I^ve been merry, what matter who knows 1 
And so as I was stealing back again 70 

To get to bed and have a bit of sleep 
Ere I rise up to-morrow and go work 
On Jerome knocking at his poor old breast 
With his great round stone to subdue the flesh, 



Fra Lippo Lippi 107 

You snap me of the sudden. Ah, I see ! 

Though your eye twinkles still, you shake your head — 

Mine 's shaved — a monk, you say — the sting 's in 

that! 
If Master Cosimo announced himself, 
Mum 's the word naturally : but a monk ! 
Come, what am I a beast for ? tell us, now ! 80 

I was a baby when my mother died 
And father died and left me in the street. 
I starved there, God knows how, a year or two 
On fig-skins, melon-parings, rinds and shucks. 
Refuse and rubbish. One fine frosty day, 
My stomach being empty as your hat, 
The wind doubled me up and down I went. 
Old Aunt Lapaccia trussed me with one hand, 
(Its fellow was a stinger as I knew) 
And so along the wall, over the bridge, 90 

By the straight cut to the convent. Six words there, 
While I stood munching my first bread that month : 
" So, boy, you 're minded," quoth the good fat father, 
Wiping his own mouth, 't was refection-time, 
" To quit this very miserable world ? 
Will you renounce" . . . "the mouthful of bread?" 

thought I ; 
By no means ! Brief, they made a monk of me ; 
I did renounce the world, its pride and greed, 
Palace, farm, villa, shop, and banking-house, 
Trash, such as these poor devils of Medici 1 00 

Have given their hearts to — all at eight years old. 
Well, sir, I found in time, you may be sure, 
'T was not for nothing — the good bellyful. 
The warm serge and the rope that goes all round, 
And day-long blessed idleness beside ! 
" Let 's see what the urchin 's fit for " — that came 

next. 
Not overmuch their way, I must confess. 
Such a to-do ! They tried me with their books ; 
Lord, they 'd have taught me Latin in pure waste ! 
Flower d the dove, no 

All the Latin I cojis^rne is "amo" I love! 
But, mind you, when a boy starves in tHe streets 
Eight years together, m ruy fortune was, 



io8 Fra Lippo Lippi 

Watching folk's faces to know who will fling 

The bit of half-stripped grape-bunch he desires, 

And who will curse or kick him for his pains, — 

Which gentleman processional and fine, 

Holding a candle to the Sacrament, 

Will wink and let him lift a plate and catch 

The droppings of the wax to sell again, 1 20 

Or holla for the Eight and have him whipped, — 

How say I ? — nay, which dog bites, which lets drop 

His bone from the heap of offal in the street, — 

Why, soul and sense of him grow sharp alike, 

He learns the look of things, and none the less 

For admonition from the hunger=pinch. 

I had a store of such remarks, be sure, 

Which, after I found leisure, turned to use. 

I drew men's faces on my copy-books. 

Scrawled them within the antiphonary's marge, 130 

Joined legs and arms to the long music-notes, 

Found eyes and nose and chin for A's and B's, 

And made a string of pictures of the world 

Betwixt the ins and outs of verb and noun. 

On the wall, the bench, the door. The monks looked 

black. 
" Nay," quoth the Prior, "turn him out, d' ye say? 
In no wise. Lose a crow and catch a lark. 
What if at last we get our man of parts, 
We Carmelites, like those Camaldolese 
And Preaching Friars, to do our church up fine 140 
And put the front on it that ought to be ! " 
And hereupon he bade me daub away. 
Thank you ! my head being crammed, the walls a 

blank. 
Never was such prompt disemburdening. 
First, every sort of monk, the black and white, 
I drew them, fat and lean : then, folk at church, 
From good old gossips waiting to confess 
Their cribs of barrel-droppings, candle-ends, — 
To the breathless fellow at the altar-foot. 
Fresh from his murder, safe and sitting there 150 

With the little children round him in a row 
Of admiration, half for his beard and half 
For that white anger of his victim's son 



Fra Lippo Lippi log 

Shaking a fist at him with one fierce arm, 

Signing himself with the other because of Christ 

(Whose sad face on the cross sees only this 

After the passion of a thousand years) 

Till some poor girl, her apron o'er her head, 

(Which the intense eyes looked through) came at eve 

On tiptoe, said a word, dropped in a loaf, i6o 

Her pair of earrings and a bunch of flowers 

(The brute took growling), prayed, and so was gone. 

I painted all, then cried " 'T is ask and have ; 

Choose, for more 's ready ! " — laid the ladder flat, 

And showed my covered bit of cloister-wall. 

The monks closed in a circle and praised loud 

Till checked, taught what to see and not to see, 

Being simple bodies, — " That 's the very man ! 

Look at the boy who stoops to pat the dog ! 

That woman 's like the Prior's niece who comes 1 70 

To care about his asthma : it 's the life ! " 

But there my triumph's straw-fire flared and funked ; 

Their betters took their turn to see and say : 

The Prior and the learned pulled a face 

And stopped all that in no time. "How? what's 

here? 
Quite from the mark of painting, bless us all ! 
Faces, arms, legs, and bodies like the true 
As much as pea and pea ! it 's devil's-game ! 
Your business is not to catch men with show, 
With homage to the perishable clay, 180 

But lift them over it, ignore it all. 
Make them forget there 's such a thing as flesh. 
Your business is to paint the souls of men — 
Man's soul, and it 's a fire, smoke . . . no, it 's not . . , 
It 's vapor done up like a new-born babe — 
(In that shape when you die it leaves your mouth) 
It 's . . . well, what matters talking, it 's the soul ! 
Give us no more of body than shows soul ! 
Here 's Giotto, with his Saint a-praising God, 
That sets us praising, — why not stop with him ? 190 
Why put all thoughts of praise out of our head 
With wonder at lines, colors, and what not ? 
Paint the soul, never mind the legs and arms ! 
Rub all out, try at it a second time. 



no Fra Lippo Lippi 

Oh, that white smallish female with the breasts, 

She 's just my niece . . . Herodias, I would say, — 

Who went and danced and got men's heads cut off! 

Have it all out ! " Now, is this sense, I ask ? 

A fine way to paint soul, by painting body 

So ill the eye can't stop there, must go further 200 

And can't fare worse ! Thus, yellow does for white 

When what you put for yellow 's simply black, 

And any sort of meaning looks intense 

When all beside itself means and looks naught. 

Why can't a painter lift each foot in turn. 

Left foot and right foot, go a double step. 

Make his flesh liker and his soul more like, 

Both in their order? Take the prettiest face, 

The Prior's niece . . . patron-saint — is it so pretty 

You can't discover if it means hope, fear, 210 

Sorrow or joy ? won't beauty go with these ? 

Suppose I 've made her eyes all right and blue, 

Can't I take breath and try to add life's flash, 

And then add soul and heighten them threefold? 

Or say there 's beauty with no soul at all — 

(I never saw it — put the case the same — ) 

If you get simple beauty and naught else. 

You get about the best thing God invents : 

That 's somewhat : and you '11 find the soul you have 

missed, 
Within yourself, when you return him thanks. 220 

" Rub all out ! " Well, well, there 's my life, in short, 
And so the thing has gone on ever since. 
I 'm grown a man no doubt, I 've broken bounds : 
You should not take a fellow eight years old 
And make him swear to never kiss the girls. 
I 'm my own master, paint now as I please — 
Having a friend, you see, in the Corner-house ! 
Lord, it's fast holding by the rings in front — 
Those great rings serve more purposes than just 
To plant a flag in or tie up a horse ! 230 

And yet the old schooling sticks, the old grave eyes 
Are peeping o'er my shoulder as I work, 
The heads shake still — " It 's art's decline, my son ! 
You 're not of the true painters, great and old ; 
Brother Angelico 's the man, you '11 find ; 



Fra Lippo Lippi 1 1 1 

Brother Lorenzo stands his single peer : 

Fag on at flesh, you '11 never make the third ! " 

Flower o' the pine. 

You keep your mistr . . . manners, and I ''11 stick to 

mine I 
I 'm not the third, then : bless us, they must know ! 240 
Don't you think they 're the likeliest to know, 
They with their Latin ? So, I swallow my rage. 
Clench my teeth, suck my lips in tight, and paint 
To please them — sometimes do and sometimes don't, 
For, doing most, there 's pretty sure to come 
A turn, some warm eve finds me at my saints — 
A laugh, a cry, the business of the world — 
{Flower d the peach, 

Death for us all, and his own life for each /) 
And my whole soul revolves, the cup runs over, 250 
The world and life 's too big to pass for a dream, 
And I do these wild things in sheer despite, 
And play the fooleries you catch me at, 
In pure rage ! The old mill-horse, out at grass 
After hard years, throws up his stiff heels so, 
Although the miller does not preach to him 
The only good of grass is to make chaff. 
What would men have? Do they like grass or no — 
May they or may n't they? all I want 's the thing 
Settled forever one way. As it is, 260 

You tell too many lies and hurt yourself: 
You don't like what you only like too much, 
You do like what, if given you at your word, 
You find abundantly detestable. 
For me, I think I speak as I was taught ; 
I always see the garden and God there 
A-making man's wife : and, my lesson learned, 
The value and significance of flesh, 
I can't unlearn ten minutes afterwards. 

You understand me : I 'm a beast, I know. 270 
But see, now — why, I see as certainly 
As that the morning-star 's about to shine, 
What will hap some day. We 've a youngster here 
Comes to our convent, studies what I do, 
Slouches and stares and lets no atom drop ; 



112 Fra Lippo Lippi 

His name is Guidi — he '11 not mind the monks — 

They call him Hulking Tom, he lets them talk — 

He picks my practice up — he '11 paint apace, 

I hope so — though I never live so long, 

I know what 's sure to follow. You be judge ! 280 

You speak no Latin more than I, belike ; 

However, you 're my man, you Ve seen the world 

— The beauty and the wonder and the power, 

The shapes of things^ their colors, lights, and shades, 
Changes, surprises, — and God made it all ! 

— For what ? Do you feel thankful, ay or no, 
For this fair town's face, yonder river's line, 
The mountain round it and the sky above, 
Much more the figures of man, woman, child. 

These are the frame to? What 's it all about? 290 

To be passed over, despised ? or dwelt upon, 

Wondered at ? oh, this last of course ! — you say. 

But why not do as well as say, — paint these 

Just as they are, careless what comes of it ? 

God's works — paint any one, and count it crime 

To let a truth slip. Don't object, " His works 

Are here already ; nature is complete : 

Suppose you reproduce her — (which you can't) 

There 's no advantage ! you must beat her, then." 

For, don't you mark ? we 're made so that we love 300 

First when we see them painted, things we have passed 

Perhaps a hundred times nor cared to see ; 

And so they are better, painted — better to us, 

Which is the same thing. Art was given for that ; 

God uses us to help each other go. 

Lending our minds out. Have you noticed, now, 

Your cuUion's hanging face ? A bit of chalk. 

And trust me but you should, though ! How much 

more. 
If I drew higher things with the same truth ! 
That were to take the Prior's pulpit-place, 310 

Interpret God to all of you ! Oh, oh, 
It makes me mad to see what men shall do 
And we in our graves ! This world 's no blot for us, 
Nor blank ; it means intensely, and means good : 
To find its meaning is my meat and drink. 
" Ay, but you don't so instigate to prayer ! " 



Fra Lippo Lippi 113 

Strikes in the Prior : " When your meaning 's plain 

It does not say to folk — remember matins, 

Or, mind you fast next Friday ! " Why, for this 

What need of art at all? A skull and bones, 320 

Two bits of stick nailed crosswise, or, what 's best, 

A bell to chime the hour with, does as well. 

I painted a Saint Laurence six months since 

At Prato, splashed the fresco in fine style : ^ 

" How looks my painting, now the scaffold 's down ? ' 

I ask a brother : " Hugely," he returns — 

" Already not one phiz of your three slaves 

Who turn the Deacon off his toasted side. 

But 's scratched and prodded to our heart's content, 

The pious people have so eased their own 330 

With coming to say prayers there in a rage : 

We get on fast to see the bricks beneath. 

Expect another job this time next year, 

For pity and religion grow i' the crowd — 

Your painting serves its purpose ! " Hang the fools ! 

— That is — you '11 not mistake an idle word 
Spoke in a huff by a poor monk, God wot. 
Tasting the air this spicy night which turns 
The unaccustomed head like Chianti wine ! 
Oh, the church knows ! don't misreport me, now ! 340 
It 's natural a poor monk out of bounds 
Should have his apt word to excuse himself: 
And hearken how I plot to make amends. 
I have bethought me : I shall paint a piece 

There 's for you ! Give me six months, then go, 
see 
Something in Sant' Ambrogio's ! Bless the nuns ! 
They want a cast o' my office. I shall pamt 
God in the midst. Madonna and her babe, 
Ringed by a bowery, flowery angel-brood, 
Lilies and vestments and white faces, sweet 350 

As puff on puff of grated orris-root 
When ladies crowd to Church at midsummer. 
And then i' the front, of course a saint or two — 
Saint John, because he saves the Florentines, 
Saint Ambrose, who puts down in black and white 
The convent's friends and gives them a long day, 



114 Fra Lippo Lippi 

And Job, I must have him there past mistake, 

The man of Uz (and Us without the z, 

Painters who need his patience). Well, all these 

Secured at their devotion, up shall come 360 

Out of a corner when you least expect, 

As one by a dark stair into a great light, 

Music and talking, who but Lippo ! I ! — 

Mazed, motionless, and moonstruck — I 'm the man ! 

Back I shrink — what is this I see and hear ? 

I, caught up with my monk's-things by mistake. 

My old serge gown and rope that goes all round, 

I, in this presence, this pure company ! 

Where 's a hole, where 's a corner for escape ? 

Then steps a sweet angelic slip of a thing 370 

Forward, puts out a soft palm — " Not so fast ! " 

— Addresses the celestial presence, " nay — 

He made you and devised you, after all, 

Though he 's none of you ! Could Saint John there 

draw — 
His camel-hair make up a painting-brush? 
We come to brother Lippo for all that, 
Iste perfecit opus ! " So, all smile — 
I shuffle sideways with my blushing face 
Under the cover of a hundred wings 
Thrown like a spread of kirtles when you 're gay 380 
And play hot cockles, all the doors being shut, 
Till, wholly unexpected, in there pops 
The hothead husband ! Thus I scuttle off 
To some safe bench behind, not letting go 
The palm of her, the little lily thing 
That spoke the good word for me in the nick. 
Like the Prior's niece . . . Saint Lucy, I would say. 
And so all 's saved for me, and for the church 
A pretty picture gained. Go, six months hence ! 
Your hand, sir, and good-bye : no hghts, no lights ! 390 
The street 's hushed, and I know my way back. 
Don't fear me ! There 's the gray beginning. 

Zooks ! 



A Toccata of Galuppis 115 



A TOCCATA OF GALUPPI'S 

(1855) 

Oh, Galuppi, Baldassaro, this is very sad to find ! 

I can hardly misconceive you ; it would prove me deaf 

and blind ; 
But although I take your meaning, 't is with such a 

heavy mind ! 

Here you come with your old music, and here 's all 
the good it brings. 

What, they hved once thus at Venice, where the mer- 
chants were the kings, 

Where St. Mark's is, where the Doges used to wed the 
sea with rings ? 

Ay, because the sea 's the street there ; and 't is arched 

by . . . what you call 
. . . Shylock's bridge with houses on it, where they 

kept the carnival : 
I was never out of England — it 's as if I saw it all. 

Did young people take their pleasure when the sea 
was warm in May? 10 

Balls and masks begun at midnight, burning ever to 
mid-day. 

When they made up fresh adventures for the morrow, 
do you say? 

Was a lady such a lady, cheeks so round and lips so 

red, — 
On her neck the small face buoyant, like a bellflower 

on its bed, 
O'er the breast's superb abundance where a man might 

base his head ? 



ii6 A Toccata of Galuppis 

Well, and it was graceful of them — they 'd break talk 
off and afford 

— She, to bite her mask's black velvet — he, to finger 

on his sword. 
While you sat and played Toccatas, stately at the clavi- 
chord ? 

What? Those lesser thirds so plaintive, sixths dimin- 
ished, sigh on sigh, 

Told them something? Those suspensions, those 
solutions — " Must we die ? " 20 

Those commiserating sevenths — " Life might last ! 
we can but try ! " 

" Were you happy ? " — " Yes." — " And are you still 
as happy ? " — '* Yes. And you ? " 

— " Then, more kisses ! " — " Did /stop them, when 

a million seemed so few?" 
Hark, the dominant's persistence, till it must be an- 
swered to ! 

So, an octave struck the answer. Oh, they praised 

you, I dare say ! 
" Brave Galuppi ! that was music ! good alike at grave 

and gay ! 
I can always leave off talking when I hear a master 

play! " 

Then they left you for their pleasure : till in due time, 

one by one. 
Some with lives that came to nothing, some with deeds 

as well undone, 30 

Death stepped tacitly and took them where they never 

see the sun. 

But when I sit down to reason, think to take my stand 

nor swerve, 
While I triumph o'er a secret wrung from nature's close 

reserve, 
In you come with your cold music till I creep through 

every nerve. 



A Toccata of Galuppis 117 

Yes, you, like a ghostly cricket, creaking where a house 

was burned : 
" Dust and ashes, dead and done with, Venice spent 

what Venice earned. 
The soul, doubtless, is immortal — where a soul can be 

discerned. 

" Yours for instance : you know physics, something of 

geology, 
Mathematics are your pastime ; souls shall rise in their 

degree ; 
Butterflies may dread extinction, — you '11 not die, it 

cannot be ! 40 

" As for Venice and her people, merely born to bloom 

and drop, 
Here on earth they bore their fruitage, mirth and folly 

were the crop : 
What of soul was left, I wonder, when the kissing had 

to stop ? 

" Dust and ashes ! " So you creak it, and I want the 
heart to scold. 

Dear dead women, with such hair, too — what 's be- 
come of all the gold 

Used to hang and brush their bosoms? I feel chilly 
and grown old. 



1 1 8 By the Fireside 



BY THE FIRESIDE 

(1855) 

How well I know what I mean to do 

When the long dark autumn evenings come ; 

And where, my soul, is thy pleasant hue ? 
With the music of all thy voices, dumb 

In life's November too ! 

I shall be found by the fire, suppose, 

O'er a great wise book as beseemeth age, 

While the shutters flap as the cross-wind blows, 
And I turn the page, and I turn the page, 

Not verse now, only prose ! lo 

Till the young ones whisper, finger on lip, 

" There he is at it, deep in Greek : 
Now then, or never, out we slip 

To cut from the hazels by the creek 
A mainmast for our ship ! " 

I shall be at it indeed, my friends ! 

Greek puts already on either side 
Such a branch-work forth as soon extends 

To a vista opening far and wide. 
And I pass out where it ends. 20 

The outside-frame like your hazel-trees, 

But the inside-archway widens fast, 
And a rarer sort succeeds to these, 

And we slope to Italy at last 
And youth, by green degrees. 

I follow wherever I am led, 

Knowing so well the leader's hand : 
Oh woman-country, wooed not wed, 

Loved all the more by earth's male-lands, 
Laid to their hearts instead ! 30 



By the Fireside 119 

Look at the ruined chapel again 

Half-way up in the Alpine gorge ! 
Is that a tower, I point you plain, 

Or is it a mill or an iron forge 
Breaks solitude in vain ? 

A turn, and we stand in the heart of things ; 

The woods are round us, heaped and dim ; 
From slab to slab how it slips and springs, 

The thread of water single and slim, 
Through the ravage some torrent brings ! 40 

Does it feed the little lake below ? 

That speck of white just on its marge 
Is Pella ; see, in the evening-glow, 

How sharp the silver spear-heads charge 
When Alp meets heaven in snow ! 

On our other side is the straight-up rock; 

And a path is kept 'twixt the gorge and it 
By boulder-stones, where lichens mock 

The marks on a moth, and small ferns fit 
Their teeth to the poHshed block. 50 

Oh, the sense of the yellow mountain-flowers, 

And thorny balls, each three in one, 
The chestnuts throw on our path in showers ! 

For the drop of the woodland fruit 's begun. 
These early November hours, 

That crimson the creeper's leap across 
Like a splash of blood, intense, abrupt, 

O'er a shield else gold from rim to boss, 
And lay it for show on the fairy-cupped. 

Elf-needled mat of moss, 60 

By the rose-flesh mushrooms, undivulged 
Last evening — nay, in to-day's first dew 

Yon sudden coral nipple bulged. 

Where a freaked, fawn-colored, flaky crew 

Of toad-stools peep indulged. 



1 20 By the Fireside 

And yonder, at foot of the fronting ridge 

That takes the turn to a range beyond, 
Is the chapel, reached by the one-arched bridge 

Where the water is stopped in a stagnant pond 
Danced over by the midge. 70 

The chapel and bridge are of stone alike, 

Blackish-gray and mostly wet ; 
Cut hemp-stalks steep in the narrow dyke. 

See here again, how the lichens fret 
And the roots of the ivy strike ! 

Poor little place, where its one priest comes 

On a festa-day, if he comes at all, 
To the dozen folk from their scattered homes, 

Gathered within that precinct small 
By the dozen ways one roams — 80 

To drop from the charcoal-burners' huts, 
Or climb from the hemp-dressers' low shed, 

Leave the grange where the woodman stores his nuts, 
Or the wattled cote where the fowlers spread 

Their gear on the rock's bare juts. 

It has some pretension too, this front, 

With its bit of fresco half-moon-wise 
Set over the porch, Art's early wont : 

'T is John in the Desert, I surmise, 
But has borne the weather's brunt — 90 

Not from the fault of the builder, though, 

For a pent-house properly projects 
Where three carved beams make a certain show, 

Dating — good thought of our architect's — 
'Five, six, nine, he lets you know. 

And all day long a bird sings there. 

And a stray sheep drinks al the pond at times ; 
The place is silent and aware ; 

It has had its scenes, its joys and crimes. 
But that is its own affair. 100 



By the Fireside 121 

My perfect wife, my Leonor, 

Oh heart, my own, oh eyes, mine too. 
Whom else could I dare look backward for, 

With whom beside should I dare pursue 
The path gray heads abhor? 

For it leads to a crag's sheer edge with them ; 

Youth, flowery all the way, there stops — 
Not they; age threatens and they contemn. 

Till they reach the gulf wherein youth drops, 
One inch from life's safe hem ! no 

With me, youth led ... I will speak now, 

No longer watch you as you sit 
Reading by fire-light, that great brow 

And the spirit-small hand propping it 
Mutely, my heart knows how — 

When, if I think but deep enough, 

You are wont to answer, prompt as rhyme ; 

And you, too, find without rebuff 

Response your soul seeks many a time 

Piercing its fine flesh-stuff. 120 

My own, confirm me ! If I tread 

This path back, is it not in pride 
To think how little I dreamed it led 

To an age so blest that, by its side, 
Youth seems the waste instead ? 

My own, see where the years conduct ! 

At first 't was something our two souls 
Should mix as mists do ; each is sucked 

In each now : on the new stream rolls. 
Whatever rocks obstruct. 130 

Think, when our one soul understands 

The great Word which makes all things new, 

When earth breaks up and heaven expands, 
How will the change strike me and you 

In the house not made with hands? 



122 By the Fireside 

Oh, I must feel your brain prompt mine, 

Your heart anticipate my heart, 
You must be just before, in fine, 

See and make me see, for your part, 
New depths of the divine ! 140 

But who could have expected this 

When we two drew together first 
Just for the obvious human bliss. 

To satisfy life's daily thirst 
With a thing men seldom miss ? 

Come back with me to the first of all, 

Let us lean and love it over again. 
Let us now forget and now recall. 

Break the rosary in a pearly rain 
And gather what we let fall ! 150 

What did I say? — that a small bird sings 

All day long, save when a brown pair 
Of hawks from the wood float with wide wings 

Strained to a bell : 'gainst noon-day glare 
You count the streaks and rings. 

But at afternoon or almost eve 

'T is better ; then the silence grows 
To that degree, you half believe 

It must get rid of what it knows. 
Its bosom does so heave. 160 

Hither we walked then, side by side, 

Arm in arm and cheek to cheek, 
And still I questioned or replied, 

While my heart, convulsed to really speak. 
Lay choking in its pride. 

* 
Silent the crumbling bridge we cross, 

And pity and praise the chapel sweet, 
And care about the fresco's loss. 

And wish for our souls a like retreat. 
And wonder at the moss. 1 70 



By the Fireside 123 

Stoop and kneel on the settle under, 

Look through the window's grated square : 

Nothing to see ! For fear of plunder 
The cross is down and the altar bare, 

As if thieves don't fear thunder. 

We stoop and look in through the grate, 

See the little porch and rustic door, 
Read duly the dead builder's date ; 

Then cross the bridge that we crossed before. 
Take the path again — but wait ! 180 

Oh, moment, one and infinite ! 

The water slips o'er stock and stone; 
The West is tender, hardly bright : 

How gray at once is the evening grown — 
One star its chrysolite ! 

We two stood there with never a third, 

But each by each, as each knew well : 
The sights we saw and the sounds we heard, 

The lights and the shades made up a spell 
Till the trouble grew and stirred. 19° 

Oh, the little more, and how much it is ! 

And the litde less, and what worlds away ! 
How a sound shall quicken content to bliss. 

Or a breath suspend the blood's best play. 
And life be a proof of this ! 

Had she willed it, still had stood the screen 
So slight, so sure, ' twixt my love and her : 

I could fix her face with a guard between, 
And find her soul as when friends confer. 

Friends — lovers that might have been. 200 

For my heart had a touch of the woodland-time, 

Wanting to sleep now over its best. 
Shake the whole tree in the summer-prime, 

But bring to the last leaf no such test ! 
« Hold the last fast ! " runs the rhyme. 



124 ^y ^^^ Fireside 

For a chance to make your little much, 

To gain a lover and lose a friend, 
Venture the tree and a myriad such, 

When nothing you mar but the year can mend : 
But a last leaf — fear to touch ! 210 

Yet should it unfasten itself and fall 

Eddying down till it find your face 
At some slight wind — best chance of all ! 

Be your heart henceforth its dwelling-place 
You trembled to forestall ! 

Worth how well, those dark gray eyes, 
That hair so dark and dear, how worth 

That a man should strive and agonize, 
And taste a veriest hell on earth 

For the hope of such a prize ! 220 

You might have turned and tried a man. 

Set him a space to weary and wear, 
And prove which suited more your plan, 

His best of hope or his worst despair, 
Yet end as he began. 

But you spared me this, like the heart you are, 

And filled my empty heart at a word. 
If two lives join, there is oft a scar, 

They are one and one, with a shadowy third ; 
One near one is too far. 230 

A moment after, and hands unseen 

Were hanging the night around us fast ; 

But we knew that a bar was broken between 
Life and Hfe : we were mixed at last 

In spite of the mortal screen. 

The forest had done it ; there they stood : 
We caught for a moment the "powers at play ; 

They had mingled us so, for once and good, 
Their work was done — we might go or stay, 

They relapsed to their ancient mood. 240 



Any Wife to Any Husband 125 

How the world is made for each of us ! 

How all we perceive and know in it 
Tends to some moment's product thus, 

When a soul declares itself — to wit, 
By its fruit, the thing it does ! 

Be hate that fruit or love that fruit. 

It forwards the general deed of man. 
And each of the Many helps to recruit 

The life of the race by a general plan ; ' 
Each living his own, to boot. 250 

I am named and known by that moment's feat ; 

There took my station and degree ; 
So grew my own small life complete, 

As nature obtained her best of me — 
One born to love you, sweet I 

And to watch you sink by the fireside now 

Back again, as you mutely sit 
Musing by fire-light, that great brow 

And the spirit-small hand propping it, 
Yonder, my heart knows how ! 260 

So, earth has gained by one man the more, 

And the gain of earth must be heaven's gain too ; 

And the whole is well worth thinking o'er 
When Autumn comes : which I mean to do 

One day, as I said before. 



ANY WIFE TO ANY HUSBAND 

(1855) 

My love, this is the bitterest, that thou — 
Who art all truth, and who dost love me now 

As thine eyes say, as thy voice breaks to say — 
Shouldst love so truly, and couldst love me still 
A whole long life through, had but love its will. 

Would death that leads me from thee brook delay. 



126 Any Wife to Any Husband 

I have but to be by thee, and thy hand 
Will never let mine go, nor heart withstand 

The beating of my heart to reach its place. 
When shall I look for thee and feel thee gone? lo 

When cry for the old comfort and find none ? 

Never, I know ! Thy soul is in thy face. 

Oh, I should fade — 't is willed so ! Might I save, 
Gladly I would, whatever beauty gave 

Joy to thy sense, for that was precious too. 
It is not to be granted. But the soul 
Whence the love comes, all ravage leaves that whole ; 

Vainly the flesh fades ; soul makes all things new. 

It would not be because my eye grew dim 

Thou couldst not find the love there, thanks to Him 20 

Who never is dishonored in the spark 
He gave us from his fire of fires, and bade 
Remember whence it sprang, nor be afraid 

While that burns on, though all the rest grow dark. 

So, how thou wouldst be perfect, white and clean 
Outside as inside, soul and soul's demesne 

Alike, this body given to show it by ! 
Oh, three-parts through the worst of life's abyss, 
What plaudits from the next world after this, 

Couldst thou repeat a stroke and gain the sky ! 30 

And is it not the bitterer to think 

That disengage our hands and thou wilt sink, 

Although thy love was love in very deed ? 
I know that nature ! Pass a festive day, 
Thou dost not throw its rehc-flower away 

Nor bid its music's loitering echo speed. 

Thou let'st the stranger's glove lie where it fell ; 
If old things remain old things, all is well. 

For thou art grateful as becomes man best : 
And hadst thou only heard me play one tune, 40 

Or viewed me from a window, not so soon 

With thee would such things fade as with the rest. 



Any Wife to Any Husband 127 

I seem to see ! We meet and part ; 't is brief; 
The book I opened keeps a folded leaf, 

The very chair I sat on breaks the rank ; 
That is a portrait of me on the wall — 
Three lines, my face comes at so slight a call : 

And for all this, one little hour to thank ! 

But now, because the hour through years was fixed, 
Because our inmost beings met and mixed, 50 

Because thou once hast loved me — wilt thou dare 
Say to thy soul and Who may list beside, 
" Therefore she is immortally my bride ; 

Chance cannot change my love, nor time impair. 

"So, what if in the dusk of life that 's left, 
I, a tired traveller of my sun bereft. 

Look from my path when, mimicking the same. 
The fire-fly glimpses past me, come and gone ? 
— Where was it till the sunset ? Where anon 

It will be at the sunrise ! What 's to blame ? " 60 

Is it so helpful to thee? Canst thou take 
The mimic up, nor, for the true thing's sake, 

Put gently by such efforts at a beam ? 
Is the remainder of the way so long, 
Thou need'st the little solace, thou the strong? 

Watch out thy watch, let weak ones doze and 
dream ! 

Ah, but the fresher faces ! " Is it true," 

Thou 'It ask, " some eyes are beautiful and new? 

Some hair, — how can one choose but grasp such 
wealth ? 
And if a man would press his lips to lips 70 

Fresh as the wilding hedge-rose-cup there slips 

The dewdrop out of, must it be by stealth ? 

" It cannot change the love still kept for Her, 
More than if such a picture I prefer 

Passing a day with, to a room's bare side : 
The painted form takes nothing she possessed, 
Yet, while the Titian's Venus lies at rest, 

A man looks. Once more, what is there to chide?" 



128 Any Wife to Any Husband 

So must I see, from where I sit and watch, 

My own self sell myself, my hand attach 80 

Its warrant to the very thefts from me — 
Thy singleness of soul that made me proud, 
Thy purity of heart I loved aloud, 

Thy man's-truth I was bold to bid God see ! 

Love so, then, if thou wilt ! Give all thou canst 
Away to the new faces — disentranced, 

(Say it and think it) obdurate no more : 
Re-issue looks and words from the old mint. 
Pass them afresh, no matter whose the print, 

Image and superscription once they bore ! 90 

Re-coin thyself and give it them to spend, — 
It all comes to the same thing at the end, 

Since mine thou wast, mine art and mine shalt be, 
Faithful or faithless, sealing up the sum 
Or lavish of my treasure, thou must come 

Back to the heart's place here I keep for thee ! 

Only, why should it be with stain at all? 
Why must I, 'twixt the leaves of coronal. 

Put any kiss of pardon on thy brow ? 
Why need the other women know so much, loo 

And talk together, " Such the look and such 

The smile he used to love with, then as now ! " 

Might I die last and show thee ! Should I find 
Such hardship in the few years left behind, 

If free to take and light my lamp, and go 
Into thy tomb, and shut the door and sit, 
Seeing thy face on those four sides of it 

The better that they are so blank, I know ! 

Why, time was what I wanted, to turn o'er 

Within my mind each look, get more and more no 

By heart each word, too much to learn at first : 
And join thee all the fitter for the pause 
'Neath the low doorway's lintel. That were cause 

For lingering, though thou calledst, if I durst ! 



Any Wife to Any Hiisband 129 

And yet thou art the nobler of us two : 

What dare I dream of, that thou canst not do, 

Outstripping my ten small steps with one stride? 
I '11 say then, here 's a trial and a task : — 
Is it to bear? — if easy, I '11 not ask ; 

Though love fail, I can trust on in thy pride. 120 

Pride ? — when those eyes forestall the life behind 
The death I have to go through ! — when I find. 

Now that I want thy help most, all of thee ! 
What did I fear? Thy love shall hold me fast 
Until the Httle minute's sleep is past 

And I wake saved. — And yet it will not be ! 



130 An Epistle 



AN EPISTLE 

CONTAINING THE STRANGE MEDICAL EXPERIENCE OF 
KARSHISH, THE ARAB PHYSICIAN 

(1855) 

Karshish, the picker-up of learning's crumbs, 

The not-incurious in God's handiwork 

(This man's-flesh he hath admirably made, 

Blown like a bubble, kneaded like a paste, 

To coop up and keep down on earth a space 

That puff of vapor from his mouth, man's soul), 

■- — To Abib, all-sagacious in our art, 

Breeder in me of what poor skill I boast, 

Like me inquisitive how pricks and cracks 

Befall the flesh through too much stress and strain, 10 

Whereby the wily vapor fain would slip 

Back and rejoin its source before the term, — 

And aptest in contrivance (under God) 

To baffle it by deftly stopping such : — 

The vagrant Scholar to his Sage at home 

Sends greeting (health and knowledge, fame with 

peace), 
Three samples of true snake-stone — rarer still, 
One of the other sort, the melon-shaped, 
(But fitter, pounded fine, for charms than drugs), 
And writeth now the twenty-second time. 20 

My journeyings were brought to Jericho : 
Thus I resume. Who, studious in our art, 
Shall count a little labor unrepaid ? 
I have shed sweat enough, left flesh and bone 
On many a flinty furlong of this land. 
Also, the country-side is all on fire 
With rumors of a marching hitherward : 
Some say Vespasian cometh, some, his son. 
A black lynx snarled and pricked a tufted ear ; 
Lust of my blood inflamed his yellow balls : 30 

I cried and threw my staff and he was gone. 



An Epistle 131 

Twice have the robbers stripped and beaten me, 

And once a town declared me for a spy ; 

But at the end, I reach Jerusalem, 

Since this poor covert where I pass the night, 

This Bethany, lies scarce the distance thence 

A man with plague-sores at the third degree 

Runs till he drops down dead. Thou laughest here ! 

'Sooth, it elates me, thus reposed and safe, 

To void the stufifing of my travel-scrip 40 

And share with thee whatever Jewry yields. 

A viscid choler is observable 

In tertians, I was nearly bold to say ; 

And falling-sickness hath a happier cure 

Than our school wots of : there 's a spider here 

Weaves no web, watches on the ledge of tombs, 

Sprinkled with mottles on an ash-gray back ; 

Take five and drop them . . . but who knows his mind, 

The Syrian runagate I trust this to ? 

His service payeth me a sublimate 50 

Blown up his nose to help the aiUng eye. 

Best wait : I reach Jerusalem at morn, 

There set in order my experiences, 

Gather what most deserves, and give thee all — 

Or I might add, Judsea's gum-tragacanth 

Scales off in purer flakes, shines clearer-grained, 

Cracks 'twixt the pestle and the porphyry — 

In fine, exceeds our produce. Scalp-disease 

Confounds me, crossing so with leprosy — 

Thou hadst admired one sort I gained at Zoar — 60 

But zeal outruns discretion. Here I end. 

Yet stay : my Syrian blinketh gratefully, 
Protesteth his devotion is my price — 
Suppose I write what harms not, though he steal? 
I half resolve to tell thee, yet I blush, 
What set me off a-writing first of all. 
An itch I had, a sting to write, a tang ! 
For, be it this town's barrenness — or else 
The Man had something in the look of him — 
His case has struck me far more than 't is worth, 70 
So, pardon if — (lest presently I lose, 



132 A7i Epistle 

In the great press of novelty at hand, 
The care and pains this somehow stole from me) 
I bid thee take the thing while fresh in mind, 
Almost in sight — for, wilt thou have the truth ? 
The very man is gone from me but now, 
Whose ailment is the subject of discourse. 
Thus then, and let thy better wit help all ! 

'T is but a case of mania — subinduced 
By epilepsy, at the turning-point 80 

Of trance prolonged unduly some three days : 
When, by the exhibition of some drug 
Or spell, exorcization, stroke of art 
Unknown to me and which 't were well to know, 
The evil thing out-breaking all at once 
Left the man whole and sound of body indeed, — 
But, flinging (so to speak) life's gates too wide, 
Making a clear house of it too suddenly, 
The first conceit that entered might inscribe 
Whatever it was minded on the wall go 

So plainly at that vantage, as it were, 
(First come, first served) that nothing subsequent 
Attaineth to erase those fancy-scrawls 
The just-returned and new-established soul 
Hath gotten now so thoroughly by heart 
That henceforth she will read or these or none. 
And first — the man's own firm conviction rests 
That he was dead (in fact, they buried him) 

— That he was dead, and then restored to Hfe 

By a Nazarene physician of his tribe : 100 

— 'Sayeth, the same bade " Rise," and he did rise. 
" Such cases are diurnal," thou wilt cry. 

Not so this figment ! — not, that such a fume, 

Instead of giving way to time and health, 

Should eat itself into the life of life, 

As saffron tingeth flesh, blood, bones, and all ! 

For see, how he takes up the after-life. 

The man — it is one Lazarus a Jew, 

Sanguine, proportioned, fifty years of age, 

The body's habit wholly laudable, no 

As much, indeed, beyond the common health 

As he were made and put aside to show. 



An Epistle 133 

Think, could we penetrate by any drug 

And bathe the wearied soul and worried flesh, 

And bring it clear and fair, by three days' sleep ! 

Whence has the man the balm that brightens all ? 

This grown man eyes the world now like a child. 

Some elders of his tribe, I should premise, 

Led in their friend, obedient as a sheep, 

To bear my inquisition. While they spoke, 120 

Now sharply, now with sorrow, — told the case, — 

He listened not except I spoke to him, 

But folded his two hands and let them talk, 

Watching the flies that buzzed : and yet no fool. 

And that 's a sample how his years must go. 

Look, if a beggar, in fixed middle-life, 

Should find a treasure, — can he use the same 

With straightened habits and with tastes starved small. 

And take at once to his impoverished brain 

The sudden element that changes things, 130 

That sets the undreamed-of rapture at his hand 

And puts the cheap old joy in the scorned dust? 

Is he not such an one as moves to mirth — 

Warily parsimonious when no need, 

Wasteful as drunkenness at undue times? 

All prudent counsel as to what befits 

The golden mean, is lost on such an one : 

The man's fantastic will is the man's law. 

So here — we call the treasure knowledge, say. 

Increased beyond the fleshly faculty — 140 

Heaven opened to a soul while yet on earth, 

Earth forced on a soul's use while seeing heaven : 

The man is witless of the size, the sum. 

The value in proportion of all things, 

Or whether it be little or be much. 

Discourse to him of prodigious armaments 

Assembled to besiege his city now. 

And of the passing of a mule with gourds — 

'T is one ! Then take it on the other side. 

Speak of some trifling fact, — he will gaze rapt 150 

With stupor at its very littleness, 

(Far as I see) as if in that indeed 

He caught prodigious import, whole results ; 

And so will turn to us the bystanders 



134 ^^ Epistle 

In ever the same stupor (note this point) 

That we too see not with his opened eyes. 

Wonder and doubt come wrongly into play, 

Preposterously at cross purposes. 

Should his child sicken unto death, — why, look 

For scarce abatement of his cheerfulness, i6o 

Or pretermission of the daily craft ! 

While a word, gesture, glance from that same child 

At play or in the school or laid asleep 

Will startle him to an agony of fear. 

Exasperation, just as like. Demand 

The reason why — " 't is but a word," object — 

" A gesture " — he regards thee as our lord, 

Who lived there in the pyramid alone. 

Looked at us (dost thou mind ?) when, being young 

We both would unadvisedly recite 170 

Some charm's beginning, from that book of his, 

Able to bid the sun throb wide and burst 

All into stars, as suns grown old are wont. 

Thou and the child have each a veil alike 

Thrown o'er your heads, from under which ye both 

Stretch your blind hands and trifle with a match 

Over a mine of Greek fire, did ye know ! 

He holds on firmly to some thread of life — 

(It is the life to lead perforcedly) 

Which runs across some vast distracting orb 180 

Of glory on either side that meagre thread, 

Which, conscious of, he must not enter yet — 

The spiritual life around the earthly life : 

The law of that is known to him as this. 

His heart and brain move there, his feet stay here. 

So is the man perplext with impulses 

Sudden to start off crosswise, not straight on. 

Proclaiming what is right and wrong across. 

And not along, this black thread through the blaze — 

" It should be " balked by " here it cannot be." 190 

And oft the man's soul springs into his face 

As if he saw again and heard again 

His sage that bade him " Rise " and he did rise. 

Something, a word, a tick o' the blood within 

Admonishes : then back- he sinks at once 

To ashes, who was very fire before, 



An Epistle ^ 135 

In sedulous recurrence to his trade 

Whereby he earneth him the daily bread ; 

And studiously the humbler for that pride, 

Professedly the faultier that he knows 200 

God's secret, while he holds the thread of life. 

Indeed the especial marking of the man 

Is prone submission to the heavenly will — 

Seeing it, what it is, and why it is. 

' Sayeth he will wait patient to the last 

For that same death which must restore his being 

To equilibrium, body loosening soul 

Divorced even now by premature full growth : 

He will live, nay, it pleaseth him to live 

So long as God please, and just how God please. 210 

He even seeketh not to please God more 

(Which meaneth, otherwise) than as God please. 

Hence, I perceive not he affects to preach 

The doctrine of his sect whate'er it be, 

Make proselytes as madmen thirst to do : 

How can he give his neighbor the real ground, 

His own conviction? Ardent as he is — 

Call his great truth a lie, why, still the old 

" Be it as God please " reassureth him. 

I probed the sore as thy disciple should : 220 

"How, beast," said I, "this stolid carelessness 

Sufficeth thee, when Rome is on her march 

To stamp out like a little spark thy town, 

Thy tribe, thy crazy tale and thee at once ? " 

He merely looked with his large eyes on me. 

The man is apathetic, you deduce ? 

Contrariwise, he loves both old and young, 

Able and weak, affects the very brutes 

And birds — how say I ? flowers of the field — 

As a wise workman recognizes tools 230 

In a master's workshop, loving what they make. 

Thus is the man as harmless as a lamb : 

Only impatient, let him do his best, 

At ignorance and carelessness and sin — 

And indignation which is promptly curbed: 

As when in certain travel I have feigned 

To be an ignoramus in our art, 

According to some preconceived design, 



136 An Epistle 

And happed to hear the land's practitioners, 

Steeped in conceit sublimed by ignorance, 240 

Prattle fantastically on disease, 

Its cause and cure — and I must hold my peace ! 

Thou wilt object — Why have I not ere this 
Sought out the sage himself, the Nazarene 
Who wrought this cure, inquiring at the source, 
Conferring with the frankness that befits ? 
Alas ! it grieveth me, the learned leech 
Perished in a tumult many years ago, 
Accused — our learning's fate — of wizardry, 
Rebellion, to the setting up a rule 250 

And creed prodigious as described to me. 
His death, which happened when the earthquake fell 
(Prefiguring, as soon appeared, the loss 
To occult learning in our lord the sage 
Who lived there in the pyramid alone), 
Was wrought by the mad people — that 's their 

wont ! 
On vain recourse, as I conjecture it, 
To his tried virtue, for miraculous help — 
How could he stop the earthquake? That's their 

way ! 
The other imputations must be lies : 260 

But take one, though I loathe to give it thee, 
In mere respect for any good man's fame. 
(And after all, our patient Lazarus 
Is stark mad ; should we count on what he says? 
Perhaps not : though in writing to a leech 
'T is well to keep back nothing of a case.) 
This man so cured regards the curer, then, 
As — God forgive me ! — ■ who but God himself, 
Creator and sustainer of the world, 
That came and dwelt in flesh on it awhile ! 270 

— 'Sayeth that such an one was born and lived, 
Taught, healed the sick, broke bread at his own 

house, 
Then died, with Lazarus by, for aught, I know. 
And yet was . . . what I said, nor choose repeat, 
And must have so avouched himself, in fact, 
In hearing of this very Lazarus 



An Epistle 137 

Who saith — but why all this of what he saith ? 

Why write of trivial matters, things of price 

Calling at every moment for remark ? 

I noticed on the margin of a pool 280 

Bkie-flovvering borage, the Aleppo sort, 

Aboundeth, very nitrous. It is strange ! 

Thy pardon for this long and tedious case, 
Which, now that I review it, needs must seem 
Unduly dwelt on, prolixly set forth ! 
Nor I myself discern in what is writ 
Good cause for the peculiar interest 
And awe indeed this man has touched me with. 
Perhaps the journey's end, the weariness, 
Had wrought upon me first. I met him thus : 290 
I crossed a ridge of short sharp broken hills. 
Like an old lion's cheek teeth. Out there came 
A moon made like a face with certain spots 
Multiform, manifold, and menacing : 
Then a wind rose behind me. So we met 
In this old sleepy town at unaware, 
The man and I. I send thee what is writ. 
Regard it as a chance, a matter risked 
To this ambiguous Syrian — he may lose, 
Or steal, or give it thee with equal good. 300 

Jerusalem's repose shall make amends 
For time this letter wastes, thy time and mine ; 
Till when, once more thy pardon and farewell ! 

The very God ! think, Abib ; dost thou think ? 
So, the All- Great, were the All- Loving too — 
So, through the thunder comes a human voice, 
Saying, " O heart I made, a heart beats here ! 
Face my hands fashioned, see it in myself ! 
Thou hast no power nor mayst conceive of mine, 
But love I gave thee, with myself to love, 310 

And thou must love me who have died for thee ! " 
The madman saith He said so : it is strange. 



138 Instans Tyrannus 

MY STAR 

(1855) 
All that I know 

Of a certain star 
Is, it can throw 

(Like the angled spar) 
Now a dart of red, 

Now a dart of blue ; 
Till my friends have said 
They would fain see, too, 
My star that dartles the red and the blue ! 
Then it stops like a bird ; like a flower hangs furled : 10 
They must solace themselves with the Saturn 
above it. 
What matter to me if their star is a world ? 

Mine has opened its soul to me ; therefore I love it. 



INSTANS TYRANNUS 

(1855) 

Of the million or two, more or less, 
I rule and possess, 
One man, for some cause undefined, 
Was least to my mind. 

I struck him, he grovelled of course — 

P"or, what was his force? 

I pinned him to earth with my weight 

And persistence of hate : 

And he lay, would not moan, would not curse, 

As his lot might be worse. 

"Were the object less mean, would he stand 

At the swing of my hand ! 

For obscurity helps him and blots 

The hole where he squats." 

So, I set my five wits on the stretch 



Installs Tyrannus 139 

To inveigle the wretch. 

All in vain ! Gold and jewels I threw. 

Still he couched there perdue ; 

I tempted his blood and his flesh, 

Hid in roses my mesh, 20 

Choicest cates and the flagon's best spilth : 

Still he kept to his filth. 

Had he kith now or kin, were access 

To his heart, did I press : 

Just a son or a mother to seize ! 

No such booty as these. 

Were it simply a friend to pursue 

'Mid my million or two, 

Who could pay me in person or pelf 

What he owes me himself! 30 

No : I could not but smile through my chafe : 

For the fellow lay safe 

As his mates do, the midge and the nit, 

— Through minuteness, to wit. 

Then a humor more great took its place 

At the thought of his face. 

The droop, the low cares of the mouth. 

The trouble uncouth 

'Twixt the brows, all that air one is fain 

To put out of its pain. 40 

And, "no! " I admonished myself, 

" Is one mocked by an elf. 

Is one baffled by toad or by rat? 

The gravamen 's in that ! 

How the lion, who crouches to suit 

His back to my foot, 

Would admire that I stand in debate ! 

But the small turns the great 

If it vexes you, — that is the thing ! 

Toad or rat vex the king? 50 

Though I waste half my realm to unearth 

Toad or rat, 't is well worth ! " 

So, I soberly laid my last plan 
To extinguish the man. 



140 Tnstans Tyrannus 

Round his creep-hole, with never a break, 

Ran my fires for his sake ; 

Over-head, did my thunder combine 

With my underground mine : 

Til] I looked from my labor content 

To enjoy the event. 60 

When sudden . . . how think ye the end ? 

Did I say " without friend " ? 

Say rather, from marge to blue marge 

The whole sky grew his targe, 

With the sun's self for visible boss; 

While an Arm ran across, 

Which the earth heaved beneath like a breast 

Where the wretch was safe prest ! 

Do you see? Just my vengeance complete, 

The man sprang to his feet, 70 

Stood erect, caught at God's skirts, and prayed ! 

— So, /was afraid ! 



Childe Roland'^ 141 



"CHILDE ROLAND TO THE DARK 
TOWER CAME" 

(See Edgar's song in Lear) 

(1835) 

My first thought was, he lied in every word, 
That hoary cripple, with malicious eye 
Askance to watch the working of his lie 
On mine, and mouth scarce able to afford 
Suppression of the glee that pursed and scored 
Its edge at one more victim gained thereby. 

What else should he be set for, with his staff? 
What, save to waylay with his lies, ensnare 
All travellers who might find him posted there, 
And ask the road ? I guessed what skull-like laugh 10 
Would break, what crutch 'gin write my epitaph 
For pastime in the dusty thoroughfare, 

If at his counsel I should turn aside 

Into that ominous tract which, all agree. 
Hides the Dark Tower. Yet acquiescingly 

I did turn as he pointed : neither pride 

Nor hope rekindling at the end descried, 

So much as gladness that some end might be. 

For, what with my whole world-wide wandering, 

What with my search drawn out through years, my 
hope 20 

Dwindled into a ghost not fit to cope 

With that obstreperous joy success would bring, — - 

I hardly tried now to rebuke the spring 
My heart made, finding failure in its scope. 

As when a sick man very near to death 

Seems dead indeed, and feels begin and end 
The tears, and takes the farewell of each friend, 



142 " Childe Roland''' 

And hears one bid the other go, draw breath 
FreeHer outside, (" since all is o'er," he saith, 

"And the blow fallen no grieving can amend ; ") 30 



While some discuss if near the other graves 
Be room enough for this, and when a day 
Suits best for carrying the corpse away, 
With care about the banners, scarves and staves : 
And still the man hears all, and only craves 
He may not shame such tender love and stay. 

Thus, I had so long suffered in this quest, ' 
Heard failure prophesied so oft, been writ 
So many times among "The Band" — to wit. 

The knights who to the Dark Tower's search ad- 
dressed 40 

Their steps — that just to fail as they, seemed best, 
And all the doubt was now — should I be fit ? 



So, quiet as despair, I turned from him, 
That hateful cripple, out of his highway 
Into the path he pointed. All the day 
Had been a dreary one at best, and dim 
Was settling to its close, yet shot one grim 
Red leer to see the plain catch its estray. 

For mark ! no sooner was I fairly found 

Pledged to the plain, after a pace or two, 50 

Than, pausing to throw backward a last view 
O'er the safe road, 't was gone ; gray plain all round : 
Nothing but plain to the horizon's bound. 
I might go on ; naught else remained to do. 

So, on I went. I think I never saw 

Such starved, ignoble nature ; nothing throve : 
For flowers — as well expect a cedar grove ! 
But cockle, spurge, according to their law 
Might propagate their kind, with none to awe, 

You 'd think : a burr had been a treasure trove. 60 



" Childe Roland'' 143 

No ! penury, inertness and grimace, 

In some strange sort, were the land's portion, " See 
Or shut your eyes," said Nature peevishly, 
" It nothing skills ; I cannot help my case : 
'T is the Last Judgment's fire must cure this place, 
Calcine its clods and set my prisoners free." 

If there pushed any ragged thistle-stalk 

Above its mates, the head was chopped ; the bents 
Were jealous else. What made those holes and rents 
In the dock's harsh swarth leaves, bruised as to balk 70 
All hope of greenness ? 't is a brute must walk 
Pashing their life out, with a brute's intents. 

As for the grass, it grew as scant as hair 

In leprosy ; thin dry blades pricked the mud, 

Which underneath looked kneaded up with blood. 
One stiff blind horse, his every bone a-stare, 
Stood stupefied, however he came there : 

Thrust out past service from the devil's stud ! 

Alive ? he might be dead for aught I know. 

With that red, gaunt and colloped neck a-strain, 80 
And shut eyes underneath the rusty mane; 

Seldom went such grotesqueness with such woe ; 

I never saw a brute I hated so ; 

He must be wicked to deserve such pain. 

I shut my eyes and turned them on my heart. 
As a man calls for wine before he fights, 
I asked one draught of earlier, happier sights, 

Ere fitly I could hope to play my part. 

Think first, fight afterwards — the soldier's art : 

One taste of the old time sets all to rights. 90 

Not it ! I fancied Cuthbert's reddening face 

Beneath its garniture of curly gold, 

Dear fellow, till I almost felt him fold 
An arm in mine to fix me to the place, 
That way he used. Alas, one night's disgrace ! 

Out went my heart's new fire and left it cold. 



144 " Childe Roland ^^ 

Giles then, the soul of honor — there he stands 
Frank as ten years ago when knighted first. 
What honest man should dare (he said) he durst. 

Good — but the scene shifts — faugh ! what hangman's 
hands i oo 

Pin to his breast a parchment ? His own bands 
Read it. Poor traitor, spit upon and curst ! 

Better this present than a past like that ; 

Back therefore to my darkening path again ! 

No sound, no sight as far as eye could strain. 
Will the night send a howlet or a bat ? 
I asked : when something on the dismal fiat 

Came to arrest my thoughts and change their 
train. 

A sudden little river crossed my path 

As unexpected as a serpent comes. no 

No sluggish tide congenial to the glooms ; 
This, as it frothed by, might have been a bath 
For the fiend's glowing hoof — to see the wrath 

Of its black eddy, bespate with flakes and spumes. 

So petty yet so spiteful ! All along, 

Low scrubby alders kneeled down over it ; 
Drenched willows flung them headlong in a fit 
Of mute despair, a suicidal throng : 
The river which had done them all the wrong, 

Whate'er that was, rolled by, deterred no whit. 120 

Which, while I forded, — good saints, how I feared 
To set my foot upon a dead man's cheek, 
Each step, or feel the spear I thrust to seek 

For hollows, tangled in his hair or beard ! 

— It may have been a water-rat I speared, 
But, ugh ! it sounded hke a baby's shriek. 

Glad was I when I reached the other bank. 
Now for a better country. Vain presage ! 
Who were the strugglers, what war did they wage, 



" Childe Roland " 145 

Whose savage trample thus could pad the dank 130 
Soil to a plash ? Toads in a poisoned tank, 
Or wild cats in a red- hot iron cage — 

The fight must so have seemed in that fell cirque. 

What penned them there, with all the plain to 
choose ? 

No footprint leading to that horrid mews, 
None out of it. Mad brewage set to work 
Their brains, no doubt, like galley-slaves the Turk 

Pits for his pastime, Christians against Jews. 

And more than that — a furlong on — why, there ! 
What bad use was that engine for, that wheel, 140 
Or break, not wheel — that harrow fit to reel 

Men's bodies out like silk ? with all the air 

Of Tophet's tool, on earth left unaware. 

Or brought to sharpen its rusty teeth of steel. 

Then came a bit of stubbed ground, once a wood. 
Next a marsh, it would seem, and now mere earth 
Desperate and done with : (so a fool finds mirth, 
Makes a thing and then mars it, till his mood 
Changes and off he goes !) within a rood — 

Bog, clay, and rubble, sand, and stark black 
dearth. 150 

Now blotches rankling, colored gay and grim, 
Now patches where some leanness of the soil 's 
Broke into moss or substances like boils ; 

Then came some palsied oak, a cleft in him 

Like a distorted mouth that splits its rim 
Gaping at death, and dies while it recoils. 

And just as far as ever from the end ! 

Naught in the distance but the evening, naught 
To point my footstep further ! At the thought, 
A great black bird, Apollyon's bosom-friend, 160 

Sailed past, nor beat his wide wing dragon-penned 
That brushed my cap — perchance the guide I 
sought. 



146 '■'■ Childe Roland''' 

For, looking up, aware I somehow grew, 
'Spite of the dusk, the plain had given place 
All round to mountains — with such name to grace 

Mere ugly heights and heaps now stolen in view. 

How thus they had surprised me, — solve it, you ! 
How to get from them was no clearer case. 

Yet half I seemed to recognize some trick 

Of mischief happened to me, God knows when — 170 
In a bad dream perhaps. Here ended, then, 
Progress this way. When, in the very nick 
Of giving up, one time more, came a click 

As when a trap shuts — you 're inside the den ! 

r~ 

I Burningly it came on me all at once, 

This was the place T those two hills on the right, 
Crouched like two bulls locked horn in horn in fight ; 
While to the left, a tall scalped mountain . . . Dunce, 
Dotard, a-dozing at the very nonce, 
{^After a life spent training for the sight ! 180 

What in the midst lay but the Tower itself? 

The round squat turret, blind as the fool's heart, 
Built of brown stone, without a counterpart 
In the whole world. The tempest's mocking elf 
Points to the shipman thus the unseen shelf 
He strikes on, only when the timbers start. 

Not see ? because of night perhaps ? — why, day 
Came back again for that ! before it left, 
The dying sunset kindled through a cleft : 
The hills, Hke giants at a hunting, lay 190 

Chin upon hand, to see the game at bay, — 

" Now stab and end the creature — to the heft ! " 

Not hear? when noise was everywhere ! it tolled 
Increasing like a bell. Names in my ears, 
Of all the lost adventurers my peers, — 

How such a one was strong, and such was bold, 

And such was fortunate, yet each of old 

Lost, lost ! one moment knelled the woe of years. 



Respectability 147 

There they stood, ranged along the hillsides, met 
To view the last of me, a living frame 200 

For one more picture ! in a sheet of flame 

I saw them, and I knew them all. And yet 

Dauntless the slug-horn to my lips I set. 
And blew. " Childe Roland to the Dark Tower 



RESPECTABILITY 

(1855) 

Dear, had the world in its caprice 

Deigned to proclaim " I know you both, 
Have recognized your plighted troth, 

Am sponsor for you : live in peace ! " — 

How many precious months and years 
Of youth had passed, that speed so fast, 
Before we found it out at last, 

The world, and what it fears ! 

How much of priceless life were spent 

With men that every virtue decks, 10 

And women models of their sex, 
Society's true ornament, — 
Ere we dared wander, nights like this, 

Through wind and rain, and watch the Seine, 

And feel the Boulevart break again 
To warmth and light and bhss ! 

I know ! the world proscribes not love ; 

Allows my fingers to caress 

Your Hps' contour and downiness, 
Provided it supply a glove. 20 

The world's good word ! — the Institute ! 

Guizot receives Montalembert ! 

Eh ? Down the court three lampions flare : 
Put forward your best foot ! 



148 The Statue mid the Bust 

THE STATUE AND THE BUST 

(1855) 

There 's a palace in Florence, the world knows well, 
And a statue watches it from the square, 
And this story of both do our townsmen tell. 

Ages ago, a lady there, 

At the farthest window facing the East, 

Asked, " Who rides by with the royal air ? " 

The bridesmaids' prattle around her ceased ; 

She leaned forth, one on either hand ; 

They saw how the blush of the bride increased — 

They felt by its beats her heart expand — 10 

As one at each ear and both in a breath 
Whispered, "The Great-Duke Ferdinand." 

That selfsame instant, underneath, 
The Duke rode past in his idle way, 
Empty and fine like a swordless sheath. 

Gay he rode, with a friend as gay, 

Till he threw his head back — " Who is she ? " 

— "A bride the Riccardi brings home to-day." ' 

Hair in heaps lay heavily 

Over a pale brow spirit-pure — 20 

Carved like the heart of the coal-black tree, 

Crisped like a war-steed's encolure — ■ 
And vainly sought to dissemble her eyes 
Of the blackest black our eyes endure, 

And lo, a blade for a knight's emprise 
Filled the fine empty sheath of a man, — 
The Duke grew straightway brave and wise. 



The Stahte and the Biist 149 

He looked at her, as a lover can ; 

She looked at him, as one who awakes : 

The past was a sleep, and her life began. 30 

Now, love so ordered for both their sakes, 

A feast was held that selfsame night 

In the pile which the mighty shadow makes. 

(For Via Larga is three-parts light, 

But the palace overshadows one, 

Because of a crime, which may God requite ! 



To Florence and God the wrong was done, 
Through the first republic's murder there 
By Cosimo and his cursed son.) 

The Duke (with the statue's face in the square) 40 
Turned in the midst of his multitude 
At the bright approach of the bridal pair. 

Face to face the lovers stood 

A single minute and no more, 

While the bridegroom bent as a man subdued — 

Bowed till his bonnet brushed the floor — 
For the Duke on the lady a kiss conferred, 
As the courtly custom was of yore. 

In a minute can lovers exchange a word ? 

If a word did pass, which I do not think, 50 

Only one out of a thousand heard. 

That was the bridegroom. At day's brink 
He and his bride were alone at last 
In a bed chamber by a taper's blink. 

Calmly he said that her lot was cast. 

That the door she had passed was shut on her 

Till the final catafalk repassed. 

The world meanwhile, its noise and stir, 

Through a certain window facing the East 

She could watch, like a convent's chronicler. 60 



150 The Statue and the Btist 

Since passing the door might lead to a feast, 
And a feast might lead to so much beside, 
He, of many evils, chose the least. 

" Freely I choose, too," said the bride — 
" Your window and its world suffice," 
Replied the tongue, while the heart replied — 

" If I spend the night with that devil twice, 
May his window serve as my loop of hell 
Whence a damned soul looks on paradise ! 

*' I fly to the Duke who loves me well, 70 

Sit by his side and laugh at sorrow, 
Ere I count another ave-bell. 

" 'T is only the coat of a page to borrow, 

And tie my hair in a horse-boy's trim. 

And I save my soul — but not to-morrow " — 

(She checked herself and her eye grew dim) 
" My father tarries to bless my state : 
I must keep it one day more for him. 

" Is one day more so long to wait ? 

Moreover, the Duke rides past, I know ; 80 

We shall see each other, sure as fate." 

She turned on her side and slept. Just so ! 
So we resolve on a thing and sleep : 
So did the lady, ages ago. 

That night the Duke said, " Dear or cheap 
As the cost of this cup of bliss may prove 
To body or soul, I will drain it deep." 

And on the morrow, bold with love, 

He beckoned the bridegroom (close on call, 

As his duty bade, by the Duke's alcove) 90 

And smiled " 'Twas a very funeral, 
Your lady will think, this feast of ours, — • 
A shame to efface, whate'er befall ! 



The Statue and the Bust 151 

" What if we break from the Arno bovvers, 

And try if Petraja, cool and green, 

Cure last night's fault with this morning's flowers? " 

The bridegroom, not a thought to be seen 
On his steady brow and quiet mouth, 
Said, " Too much favor for me so mean ! 

" But, alas ! my lady leaves the South ; 100 

Each wind that comes from the Apennine 
Is a menace to her tender youth : 

" Nor a way exists, the wise opine, 
If she quits her palace twice this year. 
To avert the flower of life's decline." 

Quoth the Duke, " A sage and a kindly fear. 
Moreover, Petraja is cold this spring ; 
Be our feast to-night as usual here ! " 

And then to himself — "Which night shall bring 
Thy bride to her lover's embraces, fool — • no 

Or I am the fool, and thou art the king ! 

** Yet my passion must wait a night, nor cool — 
For to-night the Envoy arrives from France 
Whose heart I unlock with thyself, my tool. 

" I need thee still and might miss perchance. 

To-day is not wholly lost, beside, 

With its hope of my lady's countenance : 

" For I ride — what should I do but ride? 

And, passing her palace, if I list 

May glance at its window — well betide ! " — 120 

So said, so done : nor the lady missed 
One ray that broke from the ardent brow. 
Nor a curl of the lips where the spirit kissed. 

Be sure that each renewed the vow, 
No morrow's sun should arise and set 
And leave them then as it left them now. 



152 The Statue mid the Bust 

But next day passed, and next day yet, 
With still fresh cause to wait one day more 
Ere each leaped over the parapet. 

And still, as love's brief morning wore, 130 

With a gentle start, half smile, have sigh, 
They found love not as it seemed before. 

They thought it would work infallibly, 

But not in despite of heaven and earth : 

The rose would blow when the storm passed by. 

Meantime they could profit in winter's dearth 
By store of fruits that supplant the rose : 
The world and its ways have a certain worth : 

And to press a point while these oppose 

Were simple policy ; better wait : 140 

We lose no friends and we gain no foes. 

Meantime, worse fates than a lover's fate 
Who daily may ride and pass and look 
Where his lady watches behind the grate ! 

And she — she watched the square like a book 
Holding one picture and only one, 
Which daily to find she undertook : 

When the picture was reached the book was done, 
And she turned from the picture at night to scheme 
Of tearing it out for herself next sun. 150 

So weeks grew months, years ; gleam by gleam 
The glory dropped from their youth and love, 
And both perceived they had dreamed a dream ; 

Which hovered as dreams do, still above : 
But who can take a dream for a truth ? 
Oh, hide our eyes from the next remove ! 

One day, as the lady saw her youth 
Depart, and the silver thread that streaked 
Her hair, and, worn by the serpent's tooth, 



The Statue and the Bust 153 

The brow so puckered, the chin so peaked, 160 

And wondered who the woman was, 
Hollow-eyed and haggard-cheeked, 

Fronting her silent in the glass — 
" Summon here," she suddenly said, 
" Before the rest of my old self pass, 

" Him, the Carver, a hand to aid, 

Who fashions the clay no love will change, 

And fixes a beauty never to fade. 

" Let Robbia's craft, so apt and strange, 

Arrest the remains of young and fair, 170 

And rivet them while the seasons range. 

" Make me a face on the window there. 
Waiting as ever, mute the while, 
My love to pass below in the square ! 

" And let me think that it may beguile 
Dreary days which the dead must spend 
Down in their darkness under the aisle, 

" To say, * What matters it at the end ? 

I did no more while my heart was warm 

Than does that image, my pale-faced friend.' 180 

"Where is the use of the lip's red charm. 
The heaven of hair, the pride of the brow. 
And the blood that blues the inside arm — 

" Unless we turn, as the soul knows how, 
The earthly gift to an end divine? 
A lady of clay is as good, I trow." 

But long ere Robbia's cornice, fine, 

With flowers and fruits which leaves enlace, 

Was set where now is the empty shrine — 

(And, leaning out of a bright blue space, 190 

As a ghost might lean from a chink of sky, 
The passionate pale lady's face — 



154 "^^^ Statue and the Bust 

Eying ever, with earnest eye 

And quick-turned neck at its breathless stretch, 

Some one who ever is passing by — ) 

The Duke had sighed like the simplest wretch 
In Florence, " Youth — my dream escapes ! 
Will its record stay? " And he bade them fetch 

Some subtle moulder of brazen shapes — 

" Can the soul, the will, die out of a man 200 

Ere his body find the grave that gapes? 

" John of Douay shall effect my plan, 
Set me on horseback here aloft. 
Alive, as the crafty sculptor can, 

*^ In the very square I have crossed so oft : 
That men may admire, when future suns 
Shall touch the eyes to a purpose soft, 

" While the mouth and the brow stay brave in 

bronze — 
Admire and say, ' When he was alive 
How he would take his pleasure once ! ' 210 

" And it shall go hard but I contrive 

To listen the while, and laugh in my tomb 

At idleness which aspires to strive." 



So ! While these wait the trump of doom, 
How do their spirits pass, I wonder. 
Nights and days in the narrow room? 

Still, I suppose, they sit and ponder 
What a gift life was, ages ago, 
Six steps out of the chapel yonder. 

Only they see not God, I know, 220 

Nor all that chivalry of his, 

The soldier-saints who, row on row, 



The Slatue and the Bust 155 

Burn upward each to his point of bliss — 

Since, the end of life being manifest, 

He had burned his way through the world to this. 

I hear you reproach, " But delay was best, 

For their end was a crime." — Oh, a crime will do 

As well, I reply, to serve for a test. 

As a virtue golden through and through, 

Sufficient to vindicate itself 230 

And prove its worth at a moment's view! 

Must a game be played for the sake of pelf? 
Where a button goes, 't were an epigram 
To offer the stamp of the very Guelph. 

The true has no value beyond the sham : 

As well the counter as coin, I submit, 

When your table 's a hat, and your prize, a dram. 

Stake your counter as boldly every whit, 

Venture as warily, use the same skill, 

Do your best, whether winning or losing it, 240 

If you choose to play ! — is my principle. 
Let a man contend to the uttermost 
For his life's set prize, be it what it will ! 

The counter our lovers staked was lost 

As surely as if it were lawful coin : 

And the sin I impute to each frustrate ghost 

Is — the unlit lamp and the ungirt loin, 

Though the end in sight was a vice, I say. 

You of the virtue (we issue join), 

How strive you? Deie,/abula/ 250 



156 How it Strikes a Contemporary 

HOW IT STRIKES A CONTEMPORARY 

(185s) 

I only knew one poet in my life : 

And this, or something like it, was his way. 

You saw go up and down Valladolid, 
A man of mark, to know next time you saw. 
His very serviceable suit of black 
Was courtly once and conscientious still, 
And many might have worn it, though none did : 
The cloak, that somewhat shone and showed the 

threads. 
Had purpose, and the ruff, significance. 
He walked and tapped the pavement with his cane, 10 
Scenting the world, looking it full in face, 
An old dog, bald and blindish, at his heels. 
They turned up, now, the alley by the church. 
That leads nowhither ; now, they breathed themselves 
On the main promenade just at the wrong time : 
You 'd come upon his scrutinizing hat. 
Making a peaked shade blacker than itself 
Against the single window spared some house 
Intact yet with its mouldered Moorish work, — 
Or else surprise the ferrel of his stick 20 

Trying the mortar's temper 'tween the chinks 
Of some new shop a-building, French and fine. 
He stood and watched the cobbler at his trade, 
The man who slices lemons into drink, 
The coffee-roaster's brazier, and the boys 
That volunteer to help him turn its winch. 
He glanced o'er books on stalls with half an eye, 
And fly-leaf ballads on the vender's string, 
And broad-edge bold-print posters by the wall. 
He took such cognizance of men and things, 30 

If any beat a horse, you felt he saw ; 
If any cursed a woman, he took note ; 
Yet stared at nobody, — you stared at him. 
And found, less to your pleasure than surprise. 
He seemed to know you and expect as much. 



How it Strikes a Contemporary 157 

So, next time that a neighbor's tongue was loosed, 

It marked the shameful and notorious fact, 

We had among us, not so much a spy, 

As a recording chief-inquisitor, 

The town's true master if the town but knew ! 40 

We merely kept a governor for form, 

While this man walked about and took account 

Of all thought, said and acted, then went home, 

And wrote it fully to our Lord the King 

Who has an itch to know things, he knows why. 

And reads them in his bedroom of a night. 

Oh, you might smile ! there wanted not a touch, 

A tang of . . . well, it was not wholly ease. 

As back into your mind the man's look came. 

Stricken in years a little, — such a brow 50 

His eyes had to live under ! — clear as flint 

On either side the formidable nose 

Curved, cut and colored like an eagle's claw. 

Had he to do with A's surprising fate ? 

When altogether old B disappeared 

And young C got his mistress, — was 't our friend, 

His letter to the King, that did it all ? 

What paid the bloodless man for so much pains ? 

Our Lord the King has favorites manifold. 

And shifts his ministry some once a month ; 60 

Our city gets new governors at whiles, — 

But never word or sign, that I could hear, 

Notified to this man about the streets 

The King's approval of those letters conned 

The last thing duly at the dead of night. 

Did the man love his office ? Frowned our Lord, 

Exhorting when none heard — " Beseech me not ! 

Too far above my people, — beneath me ! 

I set the watch, — how should the people know ? 

Forget them, keep me all the more in mind ! " 70 

Was some such understanding 'twixt the two ? 

I found no truth in one report at least — 
That if you tracked him to his home, down lanes 
Beyond the Jewry, and as clean to pace, 
You found he ate his supper in a room 
Blazing with lights, four Titians on the wall, 



158 How it Strikes a Contemporary 

And twenty naked girls to change his plate ! 

Poor man, he lived another kind of life 

In that new stuccoed third house by the bridge, 

Fresh-painted, rather smart than otherwise ! 80 

The whole street might o'erlook him as he sat, 

Leg crossing leg, one foot on the dog's back, 

Playing a decent cribbage with his maid 

( Jacynth, you 're sure her name was) o'er the cheese 

And fruit, three red halves of starved winter-pears, 

Or treat of radishes in April. Nine, 

Ten, struck the church clock, straight to bed went he. 

My father, like the man of sense he was, 
Would point him out to me a dozen times : 
" 'St — 'St," he 'd whisper, " the Corregidor ! " 90 
I had been used to think that personage 
Was one with lacquered breeches, lustrous belt, 
And feathers like a forest in his hat, 
Who blew a trumpet and proclaimed the news, 
Announced the bull-fights, gave each church its turn, 
And memorized the miracle in vogue ! 
He had a great observance from us boys ; 
We were in error ; that was not the man. 

I 'd like now, yet had haply been afraid, 
To have just looked, when this man came to die, 100 
And seen who lined the clean gay garret-sides 
And stood about the neat low truckle-bed. 
With the heavenly manner of relieving guard. 
Here had been, mark, the general- in-chief. 
Through a whole campaign of the world's life and 

death, 
Doing the King's work all the dim day long. 
In his old coat and up to knees in mud. 
Smoked like a herring, dining on a crust, — 
And, now the day was won, relieved at once ! 
No further show or need for that old coat, no 

You are sure, for one thing ! Bless us, all the while 
How sprucely we are dressed out, you and I ! 
A second, and the angels alter that. 
Well, I could never write a verse, — could you ? 
Let 's to the Prado and make the most of time. 



The Last Ride Together 159 



THE LAST RIDE TOGETHER 

(•855) 

I said — Then, dearest, since 't is so, 
Since now at length my fate I know, 
Since nothing all my love avails, 
Since all my life seemed meant for fails, 

Since this was written and needs must be — 
My whole heart rises up to bless 
Your name in pride and thankfulness ! 
Take back the hope you gave, — I claim 
Only a memory of the same, 
— And this beside, if you will not blame, 10 

Your leave for one more last ride with me. 

My mistress bent that brow of hers ; 
Those deep dark eyes, where pride demurs 
When pity would be softening through. 
Fixed me a breathing-while or two 

With life or death in the balance : right ! 
The blood replenished me again ; 
My last thought was at least not vain : 
I and my mistress, side by side 

Shall be together, breathe and ride, 20 

So, one day more am I deified. 

Who knows but the world may end to-night? 

Hush ! if you saw some western cloud 

All billowy bosomed, over-bowed 

By many benedictions — sun's 

And moon's and evening-star's at once — 

And so, you, looking and loving best. 
Conscious grew, your passion drew 
Cloud, sunset, raoonrise, star-shine too, 
Down on you, near and yet more near, 30 

Till flesh must fade for heaven was here ! — 
Thus leant she and lingered — joy and fear ! 

Thus lay she a moment on my breast. 



i6o The Last Ride Together 

Then we began to ride. My soul 
Smoothed itself out, a long-cramped scroll 
Freshening and fluttering in the wind. 
Past hopes already lay behind. 

What need to strive with a life awry ? 
Had I said that, had I done this, 

So might I gain, so might I miss. 40 

Might she have loved me ? just as well 
She might have hated, who can tell ! 
Where had I been now if the worst befell ? 

And here we are riding, she and I. 

Fail I alone, in words and deeds ? 
Why, all men strive, and who succeeds? 
We rode ; it seemed my spirit flew, 
Saw other regions, cities new, 

As the world rushed by on either side. 
I thought, — All labor, yet no less 50 

Bear up beneath their unsuccess. 
Look at the end of work, contrast 
The petty done, the undone vast, 
This present of theirs with the hopeful past ! 

I hoped she would love me ; here we ride. 

What hand and brain went ever paired ? 
What heart alike conceived and dared? 
What act proved all its thought had been ? 
What will but felt the fleshly screen ? 

We ride, and I see her bosom heave. 60 

There 's many a crown for who can reach. 
Ten lines, a statesman's life in each ! 
The flag stuck on a heap of bones, 
A soldier's doing ! what atones ? 
They scratch his name on the Abbey-stones. 

My riding is better, by their leave. 

What does it all mean, poet ? Well, 

Your brains beat into rhythm, you tell 

What we felt only ; you expressed 

You hold things beautiful the best, 70 

And place them in rhyme so, side by side. 
*T is something, nay 't is much : but then. 



The Last Ride Together i6i 

Have you yourself what 's best for men ? 
Are you — poor, sick, old ere your time — 
Nearer one whit your own sublime 
Than we who never have turned a rhyme ? 
Sing; riding 's a joy ! For me, I ride. 

And you, great sculptor — so, you gave 

A score of years to Art, her slave, 

And that 's your Venus, whence we turn 80 

To yonder girl that fords the burn ! 

You acquiesce, and shall I repine ? 
What, man of music, you grown gray 
With notes and nothing else to say. 
Is this your sole praise from a friend, 
" Greatly his opera's strains intend, 
But in music we know how fashions end ! " 

I gave my youth ; but we ride, in fine. 

Who knows what 's fit for us ? Had fate 

Proposed bliss here should sublimate 90 

My being — had I signed the bond — 

Still one must lead some life beyond, 

Have a bliss to die with, dim-descried. 
This foot once planted on the goal, 
This glory-garland round my soul, 
Could I descry such ? Try and test ! 
I sink back shuddering from the quest. 
Earth being so good, would heaven seem best? 

Now, heaven and she are beyond this ride. 

And yet — she has not spoke so long ! 100 

What if heaven be that, fair and strong 
At life's best, with our eyes upturned 
Whither life's flower is first discerned, 

We, fixed so, ever should so abide ? 
What if we still ride on, we two, 
With hfe forever old yet new. 
Changed not in kind but in degree. 
The instant made eternity, — 
And heaven just prove that I and she 

Ride, ride together, forever ride? no 



1 62 The Patriot 



THE PATRIOT 

AN OLD STORY 

0855) 

It was roses, roses, all the way. 

With myrtle mixed in my path like mad : 

The house-roofs seemed to heave and sway, 
The church-spires flamed, such flags they had, 

A year ago on this very day. 

The air broke into a mist with bells, 

The old walls rocked with the crowd and cries. 
Had I said, " Good folk, mere noise repels — 

But give me your sun from yonder skies ! " 
They had answered, " And afterward, what else ? " lo 

Alack, it was I who leaped at the sun, 

To give it my loving friends to keep ! 
Naught man could do, have I left undone : 

And you see my harvest, what I reap 
This very day, now a year is run. 

There *s nobody on the house-tops now — 

Just a palsied few at the windows set ; 
For the best of the sight is, all allow. 

At the Shambles' Gate — or, better yet, 
By the very scaffold's foot, I trow. 20 

I go in the rain, and, more than needs, 

A rope cuts both my wrists behind ; 
And I think, by the feel, my forehead bleeds, 

For they fling, whoever has a mind. 
Stones at me for my year's misdeeds. 

Thus I entered, and thus I go ! 

In triumphs, people have dropped down dead. 
" Paid by the world, what dost thou owe 

Me ? " — God might question ; now, instead, 
'T is God shall repay : I am safer so. 30 



Memorabilia 163 

MEMORABILIA 

(1855) 

Ah, did you once see Shelley plain, 

And did he stop and speak to you, 
And did you speak to him again ? 

How strange it seems and new ! 

But you were living before that, 

And also you are living after ; 
And the memory I started at — 

My starting moves your laughter ! 

I crossed a moor, with a name of its own 

And a certain use in the world no doubt, 10 

Yet a hand's-breadth of it shines alone 
'Mid the blank miles round about : 

For there I picked up on the heather, 

And there I put inside my breast 
A moulted feather, an eagle-feather ! 

Well, I forget the rest. 



164 Andrea Del Sarto 

ANDREA DEL SARTO 

CALLED " THE FAULTLESS PAINTER " 
(1855) 

But do not let us quarrel any more, 

No, my Lucrezia ; bear with me for once : 

Sit down and all shall happen as you wish. 

You turn your face, but does it bring your heart ? 

I '11 work then for your friend's friend, never fear, 

Treat his own subject after his own way. 

Fix his own time, accept too his own price, 

And shut the money into this small hand 

When next it takes mine. Will it ? tenderly ? 

Oh, I '11 content him, — but to-morrow, Love ! 10 

I often am much wearier than you think, 

This evening more than usual, and it seems 

As if — forgive now — should you let me sit 

Here by the window with your hand in mine 

And look a half-hour forth on Fiesole, 

Both of one mind, as married people use, 

Quietly, quietly the evening through, 

I might get up to-morrow to my work 

Cheerful and fresh as ever. Let us try. 

To-morrow, how you shall be glad for this ! 20 

Your soft hand is a woman of itself, 

And mine the man's bared breast she curls inside. 

Don't count the time lost, neither ; you must serve 

For each of the five pictures we require : 

It saves a model. So ! keep looking so — ■ 

My serpentining beauty, rounds on rounds ! 

— How could you ever prick those perfect ears. 

Even to put the pearl there ! oh, so sweet — ■ 

My face, my moon, my everybody's moon. 

Which everybody looks on and calls his, 30 

And, I suppose, is looked on by in turn. 

While she looks — no one's : very dear; no less. 

You smile ? why, there 's my picture ready made, 

There 's what we painters call our harmony ! 

A common grayness silvers everything, — 



A ndrea Del Sarto 1 6 5 

All in a twilight, you and I alike 

— You, at the point of your first pride in me 
(That 's gone, you know), —but I, at every point ; 
My youth, my hope, my art, being all toned down 
To yonder sober pleasant Fiesole. 4° 
There 's the bell clinking from the chapel top ; 

That length of convent-wall across the way 

Holds the trees safer, huddled more inside ; 

The last monk leaves the garden ; days decrease, 

And autumn grows, autumn in everything. 

Eh? the whole seems to fall into a shape 

As if I saw alike my work and self 

And all that I was born to be and do, 

A twilight-piece. Love, we are in God's hand. 

How strange now looks the life he makes us lead ; 50 

So free we seem, so fettered fast we are ! 

I feel he laid the fetter : let it lie ! 

This chamber for example — turn your head — 

All that 's behind us ! You don't understand 

Nor care to understand about my art, 

But you can hear at least when people speak : 

And that cartoon, the second from the door 

— It is the thing, Love ! so such thing should be — 
Behold Madonna ! — I am bold to say, 

I can do with my pencil what I know, 60 

What I see, what at bottom of my heart 

I wish for, if I ever wish so deep — 

Do easily, too — when I say, perfectly, 

I do not boast, perhaps : yourself are judge, 

Who listened to the Legate's talk last week. 

And just as much they used to say in France. 

At any rate 't is easy, all of it ! 

No sketches first, no studies, that 's long past : 

I do what many dream of all their lives, 

— Dream? strive to do, and agonize to do, 70 
And fail in doing. I could count twenty such 

On twice your fingers, and not leave this town, 
Who strive — you don't know how the others strive 
To paint a little thing like that you smeared 
Carelessly passing with your robes afloat, — 
Yet do much less, so much less. Someone says, 
(I know his name, no matter) — so much less I 



i66 Andrea Del Sar to 

Well, less is more, Lucrezia : I am judged. 

There burns a truer light of God in them, 

In their vexed, beating, stuffed and stopped-up 

brain, 
Heart, or whate'er else, than goes on to prompt 80 
This low-pulsed forthright craftsman's hand of mine. 
Their works drop groundward, but themselves, I know, 
Reach many a time a heaven that 's shut to me, 
Enter and take their place there sure enough, 
Though they come back and cannot tell the world. 
My works are nearer heaven, but I sit here. 
The sudden blood of these men ! at a word — 
Praise them, it boils, or blame them, it boils too. 
I, painting from myself and to myself, 90 

Know what I do, am unmoved by men's blame 
Or their praise either. Somebody remarks 
Morello's outline there is wrongly traced, 
His hue mistaken ; what of that? or else, 
Rightly traced and well ordered ; what of that ? 
Speak as they please, what does the mountain care? 
Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, 
Or what 's a heaven for ? All is silver-gray 
Placid and perfect with my art : the worse ! 
I know both what I want and what might gain, 100 
And yet how profitless to know, to sigh 
" Had I been two, another and myself. 
Our head would have o'erlooked the world! " No 

doubt. 
Yonder 's a work now, of that famous youth 
The Urbinate, who died five years ago. 
('T is copied, George Vasari sent it me.) 
Well, I can fancy how he did it all, 
Pouring his soul, with kings and popes to see. 
Reaching, that heaven might so replenish him, 
Above and through his art — for it gives way ; no 
That arm is wrongly put — and there again — 
A fault to pardon in the drawing's lines, 
Its body, so to speak : its soul is right. 
He means right — that, a child may understand. 
Still, what an arm ! and I could alter it : 
But all the play, the insight and the stretch — 
Out of me, out of me ! And wherefore out ? 



Andrea Del Sar to 167 

Had you enjoined them on me, given me soul, 

We miglit have risen to Rafael, I and you ! 

Nay, Love, you did give all I asked, I think — 120 

More than I merit, yes, by many times. 

But had you — oh, with the same perfect brow, 

And perfect eyes, and more than perfect mouth, 

And the low voice my soul hears, as a bird 

The fowler's pipe, and follows to the snare — 

Had you, with these the same, but brought a mind ! 

Some women do so. Had the mouth there urged 

" God and the glory ! never care for gain. 

The present by the future, what is that? 

Live for fame, side by side with Agnolo ! 130 

Rafael is waiting : up to God, all three ! " 

I might have done it for you. So it seems : 

Perhaps not. All is as God overrules. 

Besides, incentives come from the soul's self; 

The rest avail not. Why do I need you ? 

What wife had Rafael, or has Agnolo ? 

In this world, who can do a thing, will not ; 

And who would do it, cannot, I perceive : 

Yet the will 's somewhat — somewhat, too, the power — 

And thus we half-men struggle. At the end, 140 

God, I conclude, compensates, punishes. 

'T is safer for me, if the award be strict, 

That I am something underrated here, 

Poor this long while, despised, to speak the truth. 

I dared not, do you know, leave home all day, 

For fear of chancing on the Paris lords. 

The best is when they pass and look aside ; 

But they speak sometimes ; I must bear it all. 

Well may they speak ! That Francis, that first time, 

And that long festal year at Fontainebleau ! 150 

I surely then could sometimes leave the ground, 

Put on the glory, Rafael's daily wear. 

In that humane great monarch's golden look, — 

One finger in his beard or twisted curl 

Over his mouth's good mark that made the smile, 

One arm about my shoulder, round my neck, 

The jingle of his gold chain in my ear, 

I painting proudly with his breath on me, 

All his court round him, seeing with his eyes, 



1 68 Andrea Del Sar to 

Such frank French eyes, and such a fire of souls i6o 

Profuse, my hand kept plying by those hearts, — 

And, best of all, this, this, this face beyond, 

This in the background, waiting on my work, 

To crown the issue with a last reward ! 

A good time, was it not, my kingly days ? 

And had you not grown restless , . . but I know — 

'T is done and past ; 'twas right, my instinct said; 

Too live the life grew, golden and not gray. 

And I 'm the weak-eyed bat no sun should tempt 

Out of the grange whose four walls make his world. 170 

How could it end in any other way ? 

You called me, and I came home to your heart. 

The triumph was — to reach and stay there ; since 

I reached it ere the triumph, what is lost? 

Let my hands frame your face in your hair's gold. 

You beautiful Lucrezia that are mine ! 

" Rafael did this, Andrea painted that ; 

The Roman's is the better when you pray, 

But still the other's Virgin was his wife " — 

Men will excuse me. I am glad to judge 180 

Both pictures in your presence ; clearer grows 

My better fortune, I resolve to think. 

For, do you know, Lucrezia, as God lives, 

Said one day Agnolo, his very self. 

To Rafael ... I have known it all these years . . . 

(When the young man was flaming out his thoughts 

Upon a palace-wall for Rome to see, 

Too lifted up in heart because of it) 

" Friend, there 's a certain sorry litde scrub 

Goes up and down our Florence, none cares how, \ 90 

Who, were he set to plan and execute 

As you are, pricked on by your popes and kings. 

Would bring the sweat into that brow of yours ! " 

To Rafael's ! — And indeed the arm is wrong. 

I hardly dare . . . yet, only you to see, 

Give the chalk here — quick, thus the line should go ! 

Ay, but the soul ! he 's Rafael ! rub it out ! 

Still, all I care for, if he spoke the truth, 

(What he ? why, who but Michel Agnolo ? 

Do you forget already words like those ?) 200 

If really there was such a chance, so lost, — 



Andrea Del Sarto 169 

Is, whether you 're — not grateful — but more pleased. 

Well, let me think so. And you smile indeed ! 

This hour has been an hour ! Another smile ? 

If you would sit thus by me every night 

I should work better, do you comprehend ? 

I mean that I should earn more, give you more. 

See, it is settled dusk now ; there 's a star ; 

Morello 's gone, the watch-lights show the wall, 

The cue-owls speak the name we call them by. 210 

Come from the window, love, — come in, at last, 

Inside the melancholy little house 

We built to be so gay with. God is just. 

King Francis may forgive me : oft at nights 

When I look up from painting, eyes tired out, 

The walls become illumined, brick from brick 

Distinct, instead of mortar, fierce bright gold. 

That gold of his I did cement them with ! 

Let us but love each other. Must you go ? 

That Cousin here again? he waits outside? 220 

Must see you — you, and not with me? Those loans? 

More gaming debts to pay? you smiled for that? 

Well, let smiles buy me ! have you more to spend ? 

While hand and eye and something of a heart 

Are left me, work 's my ware, and what 's it worth ? 

I '11 pay my fancy. Only let me sit 

The gray remainder of the evening out, 

Idle, you call it, and muse perfectly 

How I could paint, were I but back in France, 

One picture, just one more — the Virgin's face. 230 

Not yours this time ! I want you at my side 

To hear them — that is, Michel Agnolo — 

Judge all I do and tell you of its worth. 

Will you? To-morrow, satisfy your friend. 

I take the subjects for his corridor. 

Finish the portrait out of hand — there, there, 

And throw him in another thing or two 

If he demurs ; the whole should prove enough 

To pay for this same Cousin's freak. Beside, 

What 's better, and what 's all I care about, 240 

Get you the thirteen scudi for the ruff! 

Love, does that please you ? Ah, but what does he, 

The Cousin ! what does he to please you more? 



170 Andrea Del Sar to 

I am grown peaceful as old age to-night. 
I regret little, I would change still less. 
Since there my past life lies, why alter it? 
The very wrong to Francis ! — it is true 
I took his coin, was tempted and complied, 
And built this house and sinned, and all is said. 
My father and my mother died of want. 250 

Well, had I riches of my own? you see 
How one gets rich ! Let each one bear his lot. 
They were born poor, lived poor, and poor they died : 
And I have labored somewhat in my time 
And not been paid profusely. Some good son 
Paint my two hundred pictures — let him try ! 
No doubt, there 's something strikes a balance. Yes, 
You loved me quite enough, it seems, to-night. 
This must suffice me here. What would one have ? 
In heaven, perhaps, new chances, one more 

chance — 260 

Four great walls in the New Jerusalem, 
Meted on each side by the angel's reed, 
For Leonard, Rafael, Agnolo, and me 
To cover — the three first without a wife, 
While I have mine ! So — still they overcome, 
Because there 's still Lucrezia, — as I choose. 

Again the Cousin's whistle ! Go, my Love. 



Old Pictures in Florence 1 7 1 

OLD PICTURES IN FLORENCE 
(1855) 

The morn when first it thunders in March, 

The eel in the pond gives a leap, they say : 
As I leaned and looked over the aloed arch 

Of the villa-gate this warm March day, 
No flash snapped, no dumb thunder rolled 

In the valley beneath, where, white and wide 
And washed by the morning water-gold, 

Florence lay out on the mountain-side. 

River and bridge and street and square 

Lay mine, as much at my beck and call, 10 

Through the live translucent bath of air, 

As the sights in a magic crystal ball. 
And of all I saw and of all I praised, 

The most to praise and the best to see 
Was the startling bell-tower Giotto raised : 

But why did it more than startle me ? 

Giotto, how, with that soul of yours, 

Could you play me false who loved you so ? 
Some slights if a certain heart endures 

Yet it feels, I would have your fellows know ! 20 
r faith, I perceive not why I should care 

To break a silence that suits them best, 
But the thing grows somewhat hard to bear 

When I find a Giotto join the rest. 

On the arch where olives overhead 

Print the blue sky with twig and leaf, 
(That sharp-curled leaf which they never shed) 

'Twixt the aloes, I used to lean in chief, 
And mark through the winter afternoons, 

By a gift God grants me now and then, 3Q 

In the mild decline of those suns like moons. 

Who walked in Florence, besides her men, 



172 Old Pictures in Florence 

They might chirp and chaffer, come and go 
For pleasure or profit, her men ahve — 

My business was hardly with them, I trow, 
But with empty cells of the human hive ; 

— With the chapter-room, the cloister-porch, 
The church's apsis, aisle or nave. 

Its crypt, one fingers along with a torch, 

Its face set full for the sun to shave. 40 

Wherever a fresco peels and drops, 

Wherever an outline weakens and wanes 

Till the latest life in the painting stops, 

Stands One whom each fainter pulse-tick pains : 

One, wishful each scrap should clutch the brick, 
Each tinge not wholly escape the plaster, 

— A lion who dies of an ass's kick, 

The wronged great soul of an ancient Master. 

For oh, this world and the wrong it does ! 

They are safe in heaven with their backs to it, 50 
The Michaels and Rafaels, you hum and buzz 

Round the works of, you of the little wit ! 
Do their eyes contract to the earth's old scope. 

Now that they see God face to face. 
And have all attained to be poets, I hope ? 

'T is their hoHday now, in any case. 

Much they reck of your praise and you ! 

But the wronged great souls — can they be quit 
Of a world where their work is all to do. 

Where you style them, you of the little wit, 60 

Old Master This and Early the Other, 

Not dreaming that Old and New are fellows : 
A younger succeeds to an elder brother, 

Da Vincis derive in good time from Dellos. 

And here where your praise might yield returns, 
And a handsome word or two give help, 

Here, after your kind, the mastiff girns 
And the puppy pack of poodles yelp. 

What, not a word for Stefano there, 

Of brow once prominent and starry, 70 



Old Pictures in Florence 173 

Called Nature's Ape, and the world's despair 
For his peerless painting ? (See Vasari.) 

There stands the Master. Study, my friends, 

What a man's work comes to ! So he plans it, 
Performs it, perfects it, makes amends 

For the toiling and moiling, and then, sic transit ! 
Happier the thrifty blind-folk labor, 

With upturned eye while the hand is busy. 
Not sidling a glance at the coin of their neighbor ! 

'T is looking downward that makes one dizzy. 80 

" If you knew their work you would deal your dole." 

May I take upon me to instruct you ? 
When Greek Art ran and reached the goal, 

Thus much had the world to boast infructu — 
The Truth of Man, as by God first spoken, 

Which the actual generations garble. 
Was re-uttered, and Soul (which Limbs betoken) 

And Limbs (Soul informs) made new in marble. 

So you saw yourself as you wished you were, 

As you might have been, as you cannot be ; 90 

Earth here, rebuked by Olympus there : 

And grew content in your poor degree 
With your little power, by those statues' god-head, 

And your little scope, by their eyes' full sway. 
And your little grace, by their grace embodied, 

And your little date, by their forms that stay. 

You would fain be kinglier, say, than I am? 

Even so, you will not sit like Theseus. 
You would prove a model ? The Son of Priam 

Has yet the advantage in arms' and knees' use. 100 
You 're wroth — can you slay your snake like Apollo ? 

You 're grieved — still Niobe 's the grander ! 
You live — there 's the Racers' frieze to follow : 

You die — there 's the dying Alexander. 

So, testing your weakness by their strength. 
Your meagre charms by their rounded beauty, 



1 74 Old Pictures i7t Florence 

Measured by Art in your breadth and length, 
You learned — to submit is a mortal's duty. 

— When I say " you " 't is the common soul, 

The collective, I mean: the race of Man no 

That receives life in parts to live in a whole, 
And grow here according to God's clear plan. 

Growth came when, looking your last on them all, 

You turned your eyes inwardly one fine day 
And cried with a start — What if we so small 

Be greater and grander the while than they? 
Are they perfect of lineament, perfect of stature ? 

In both, of such lower types are we 
Precisely because of our wider nature ; 

For time, theirs — ours, for eternity. 120 

To-day's brief passion limits their range ; 

It seethes with the morrow for us, and more. 
They are perfect — how else ? they shall never change ; 

We are faulty — why not? we have time in store. 
The Artificer's hand is not arrested 

With us ; we are rough-hewn, nowise polished : 
They stand for our copy, and, once invested 

With all they can teach, we shall see them abolished. 

'T is a life-long toil till our lump be leaven — 

The better ! What 'scome to perfection perishes. 130 
Things learned on earth, we shall practise in heaven : 

Works done least rapidly, Art most cherishes. 
Thyself shalt afford* the example, Giotto ! 

Thy one work, not to decrease or diminish. 
Done at a stroke, was just (was it not?) " O ! " 

Thy great Campanile is still to finish. 

Is it true that we are now, and shall be hereafter, 

But what and where depend on Ufe's minute? 
Hails heavenly cheer or infernal laughter 

Our first step out of the gulf or in it? 140 

Shall Man, such step within his endeavor, 

Man's face, have no more play and action 
Than joy which is crystallized forever, 

Of grief, an eternal petrifaction ? 



Old Pictures in Florence 175 

On which I conclude, that the early painters, 

To cries of " Greek Art and what more v/ish 
you?" — 
Replied, " To become now self-acquainters, 

And paint man, man, whatever the issue ! 
Make new hopes shine through the flesh they fray, 

New fears aggrandize the rags and tatters : 150 

To bring the invisible full into play ! 

Let the visible go to the dogs — what matters ? " 

Give these, I exhort you, their guerdon and glory 

For daring so much, before they well did it. 
The first of the new, in our race's story, 

Beats the last of the old ; 't is no idle quiddit. 
The worthies began a revolution, 

Which if on earth you intend to acknowledge. 
Why, honor them now ! (ends my allocution) 

Nor confer your degree when the folk leave 
college. 160 

There 's a fancy some lean to and others hate — 

That, when this hfe is ended, begins 
New work for the soul in another state. 

Where it strives and gets weary, loses and wins : 
Where the strong and the weak, this world's congeries. 

Repeat in large what they practised in small, 
Through life after life in unlimited series ; 

Only the scale 's to be changed, that 's all. 

Yet I hardly know. When a soul has seen 

By the means of Evil that Good is best, 170 

And, through earth and its noise, what is heaven's 
serene, — 

When our faith in the same has stood the test — 
Why, the child grown man, you burn the rod, 

The uses of labor are surely done ; 
There remaineth a rest for the people of God : 

And I have had troubles enough, for one. 

But at any rate I have loved the season 
Of Art's spring-birth so dim and dewy ; 



1 76 Old Pictures in Florence 

My sculptor is Nicolo the Pisan, 

My painter — who but Cimabue? 180 

Nor ever was man of them all indeed, 

From these to Ghiberti and Ghirlandajo, 
Could say that he missed my critic-meed. 

So, now to my special grievance — heigh-ho ! 

Their ghosts still stand, as I said before, 

Watching each fresco flaked and rasped, 
Blocked up, knocked out, or whitewashed o'er : 

— No getting again what the church has grasped ! 
The works on the wall must take their chance ; 

"Works never conceded to England's thick 
clime ! " 190 

(I hope they prefer their inheritance 

Of a bucketful of Italian quick-lime.) 

When they go at length, with such a shaking 

Of heads o'er the old delusion, sadly 
Each master his way through the black streets taking, 

Where many a lost work breathes though badly — 
Why don't they bethink them of who has merited ? 

Why not reveal, while their pictures dree 
Such doom, how a captive might be out-ferreted? 

Why is it they never remember me? 200 

Not that I expect the great Bigordi, 

Nor Sandro to hear me, chivalric, bellicose ; 
Nor the wronged Lippino ; and not a word I 

Say of a scrap of Fra Angelico's : 
But are you too fine, Taddeo Gaddi, 

To grant me a taste of your intonaco, 
Some Jerome that seeks the heaven with a sad eye ? 

Not a churlish saint, Lorenzo Monaco ? 

Could not the ghost with the close red cap, 

My Pollajolo, the twice a craftsman, 210 

Save me a sample, give me the hap 

Of a muscular Christ that shows the draughtsman ? 

No Virgin by him the somewhat petty, 
Of finical touch and tempera crumbly — 



Old Pictures in Florence 1 77 

Could not Alesso Baldovinetti 

Contribute so much, I ask him humbly? 

Mareheritone of Arezzo, ,,,• u ^^ 

With the grave-clothes garb and swaddhng barret, 

CWhv purse up mouth and beak m a pet so, 

^ You bald old saturnine poll-clawed parrot?) 220 

Not a poor glimmering Crucifixion, 

Where in the foreground kneels the donor? 

If such remain, as is my conviction. 

The hoarding it does you but little honor. 

They pass ; for them the panels may thrill. 

The tempera grow alive and tinghsh ; 
Their pictures are left to the mercies still 

Of dealers and stealers, Jews and the Enghsh, 
Who, seeing mere money's worth in their prize, 

Will sell it to somebody calm as Zeno 23° 

At naked High Art, and in ecstasies 

Before some clay-cold vile Carhno ! 

No matter for these ! But Giotto, you, 

Have you allowed, as the town-tongues babble it, — 
Oh, never ! it shall not be counted true — 

That a certain precious little tablet 
Which Buonarroti eyed like a lover — 

Was buried so long in oblivion's womb 
And left for another than I to discover, 

Turns up at last ! and to whom?-to whom? 240 

I that have haunted the dim San Spirito, 
' (Or was it rather the Ognissanti?) 
Patient on altar-step planting a weary toe ! 

Nay, I shall have it yet ! Detur anianti ! 
My Koh-i-noor - or (if that 's a platitude) 

Jewel of Giamschid, the Persian Sofi s eye ; 
So, in anticipative gratitude. 

What if I take up my hope and prophesy? 

When the hour grows ripe, and a certain dotard 

Is pitched, no parcel that needs invoicing, 250 

To the worst side of the Mont St. Gothard, 
We shall begin by way of rejoicing ; 



1 78 Old Pictures in Floreiice 

None of that shooting the sky (blank cartridge), 
Nor a civic guard, all plumes and lacquer, 

Hunting Radetzky's soul like a partridge 
Over Morello with squib and cracker. 

This time we '11 shoot better game and bag 'em hot — ■ 

No mere display at the stone of Dante, 
But a kind of sober Witanagemot 

(Ex: ^^ Qd&dL G\iS!^\" quod videas ante) 260 

Shall ponder, once Freedom restored to Florence, 

How Art may return that departed with her. 
Go, hated house, go each trace of the Loraine's, 

And bring us the days of Orgagna hither ! 

How we shall prologuize, how we shall perorate, 

Utter fit things upon art and history, 
Feel truth at blood-heat and falsehood at zero rate, 

Make of the want of the age no mystery ; 
Contrast the fructuous and sterile eras, 

Show — monarchy ever its uncouth cub licks 270 
Out of the bear's shape into Chimaera's, 

While Pure Art's birth is still the republic's. 

Then one shall propose in a speech (curt Tuscan, 

Expurgate and sober, with scarcely an " issifno"^ 
To end now our half-told tale of Cambuscan, 

And turn the bell-tower's alt to altissimo : 
And, fine as the beak of a young beccaccia. 

The Campanile, the Duomo's fit ally, 
Shall soar up in gold full fifty braccia. 

Completing Florence, as Florence Italy. 280 

Shall I be alive that morning the scaffold 

Is broken away, and the long-pent fire. 
Like the golden hope of the world, unbaftled 

Springs from its sleep, and up goes the spire. 
While, " God and the People " plain for its motto, 

Thence the new tricolor flaps at the sky? 
At least, to foresee that glory of Giotto 

And Florence together, the first am I ! 



Saul 1 79 

SAUL 

(1855) 

Said Abner, " At last thou art come ! Ere I tell, ere 

thou speak, 
Kiss my cheek, wish me well ! " Then I wished it, 

and did kiss his cheek. 
And he : " Since the King, O my friend, for thy 

countenance sent, 
Neither drunken nor eaten have we ; nor until from 

his tent 
Thou return with the joyful assurance the King liveth 

yet, 
Shall our lip with the honey be bright, with the water 

be wet. 
For out of the black mid-tent's silence, a space of 

three days, 
Not a sound hath escaped to thy servants, of prayer 

nor of praise, 
To betoken that Saul and the Spirit have ended their 

strife, 
And that, faint in his triumph, the monarch sinks back 

upon Ufe. 10 

"Yet now my heart leaps, O beloved ! God's child, 

with his dew 
On thy gracious gold hair, and those lilies still living 

and blue 
Just broken to twine round thy harp-strings, as if no 

wild heat 
Were now raging to torture the desert ! " 

Then I, as was meet, 
Knelt down to the God of my fathers, and rose on my 

feet. 
And ran o'er the sand burnt to powder. The tent 

was unlooped ; 
I pulled up the spear that obstructed, and under I 

stooped ; 



I 80 Saul 

Hands and knees on the slippery grass-patch, all 

withered and gone, 
That extends to the second enclosure, I groped my 

way on 
Till I felt where the foldskirts fly open. Then once 

more I prayed, 20 

And opened the foldskirts and entered, and was not 

afraid, 
But spoke, " Here is David, thy servant! " And no 

voice replied. 
At the first I saw naught but the blackness : but soon 

I descried 
A something more black than the blackness — the 

vast, the upright 
Main prop which sustains the pavilion ; and slow into 

sight 
Grew a figure against it, gigantic and blackest of all. 
Then a sunbeam, that burst through the tent-roof, 

showed Saul. 



He stood as erect as that tent-prop, both arms 

stretched out wide 
On the great cross-support in the centre, that goes to 

each side ; 
He relaxed not a muscle, but hung there as, caught in 

his pangs 30 

And waiting his change, the king-serpent all heavily 

hangs, 
Far away from his kind, in the pine, till deliverance 

come 
With the spring-time, — so agonized Saul, drear and 

stark, blind and dumb. 

Then I tuned my harp, — took off the lilies we twine 

round its chords 
Lest they snap 'neath the stress of the noontide — 

those sunbeams like swords ! 
And I first played the tune all our sheep know, as, one 

after one, 
So docile they come to the pen-door till folding be 

done. 



Saul i8i 

They are white and untorn by the bushes, for lo, they 

have fed 
Where the long grasses stifle the water within the 

stream's bed ; 
And now one after one seeks its lodging, as star 

follows star 4° 

Into eve and the blue far above us, — so blue and so 

far! 

— Then the tune for which quails on the cornland will 

each leave his mate 
To fly after the player; then, what makes the crickets 

elate 
Till for boldness they fight one another; and then, 

what has weight 
To set the quick jerboa a-musing outside his sand 

house — 
There are none such as he for a wonder, half bird and 

half mouse ! 
God made all the creatures and gave them our love 

and our fear, 
To give sign we and they are his children, one family 

here. 

Then I played the help-tune of our reapers, their wine- 
song, when hand 
Grasps at hand, eye hghts eye in good friendship, and 

great hearts expand 50 

And grow one in the sense of this world's life. — And 

then, the last song 
When the dead man is praised on his journey — 

" Bear, bear him along, 
With his few faults shut up like dead flowerets ! Are 

balm seeds not here 
To console us ? The land has none left such as he on 

the bier. 
Oh, would we might keep thee, my brother ! " — And 

then, the glad chaunt 
Of the marriage, — first go the young maidens, next, 

she whom we vaunt 
As the beauty, the pride of our dwelling. — And then, 

the great march 



1 82 Saul 

Wherein man runs to man to assist him and buttress 

an arch 
Naught can break ; who shall harm them, our friends ? 

Then, the chorus intoned 
As the Levites go up to the altar in glory enthroned. 60 
But I stopped here : for here in the darkness Saul 

groaned. 

And I paused, held my breath in such silence, and 

listened apart ; 
And the tent shook, for mighty Saul shuddered ; and 

sparkles 'gan dart 
From the jewels that woke in his turban at once with 

a start, 
All its lordly male-sapphires, and rubies courageous at 

heart. 
So the head : but the body still moved not, still hung" 

there erect. 
And I bent once again to my playing, pursued it 

unchecked, 
As I sang : — 

" Oh, our manhood's prime vigor ! No spirit feels 
waste, 

Not a muscle is stopped in its playing, nor sinew 
unbraced. 

Oh, the wild joys of living ! the leaping from rock up 
to rock, 70 

The strong rending of boughs from the fir-tree, the 
cool silver shock 

Of the plunge in a pool's living water, the hunt of the 
bear, 

And the sultriness showing the lion is couched in his 
lair. 

And the meal, the rich dates yellowed over with gold- 
dust divine, 

And the locust-flesh steeped in the pitcher, the full 
draught of wine, 

And the sleep in the dried river-channel, where bul- 
rushes tell 

That the water was wont to go warbling so softly and 
well. 



Saul 183 

How good is man's life, the mere living ! how fit to 

employ 
All the heart and the soul and the senses forever in 

joy! 
Hast thou loved the white locks of thy father, whose 

sword thou didst guard 80 

When he trusted thee forth with the armies, for glorious 

reward ? 
Didst thou see the thin hands of thy mother, held up 

as men sung 
The low song of the nearly-departed, and hear her 

faint tongue 
Joining in while it could to the witness, 'Let one 

more attest, 
I have lived, seen God's hand through a life-time, and 

all was for best ' ? 
Then they sung through their tears in strong triumph, 

not much, but the rest. 
And thy brothers, the help and the contest, the work- 
ing whence grew 
Such result as, from seething grape-bundles, the spirit 

strained true : 
And the friends of thy boyhood — that boyhood of 

wonder and hope, 
Present promise and wealth of the future beyond the 

eye's scope, — 90 

Till lo, thou art grown to a monarch ; a people is thine ; 
And all gifts, which the world offers singly, on one 

head combine ! 
On one head, all the beauty and strength, love and 

rage (like the throe 
That, a-work in the rock, helps its labor and lets the 

gold go), 
High ambition and deeds which surpass it, fame 

crowning them, — all 
Brought to blaze on the head of one creature — King 

Saul ! " 

And lo, with that leap of my spirit, — heart, hand, 

harp, and voice. 
Each lifting Saul's name out of sorrow, each bidding 

rejoice 



1 84 Saul 

Saul's fame in the light it was made for — as when, 

dare I say, 
The Lord's army, in rapture of service, strains through 

its array, 100 

And upsoareth the cherubim-chariot — " Saul ! " cried 

I, and stopped. 
And waited the thing that should follow. Then Saul, 

who hung propped 
By the tent's cross-support in the centre, was struck 

by his name. 
Have ye seen when Spring's arrowy summons goes 

right to the aim, 
And some mountain, the last to withstand her, that 

held (he alone, 
While the vale laughed in freedom and flowers) on a 

broad bust of stone 
A year's snow bound about for a breastplate, — leaves 

grasp of the sheet ? 
Fold on fold all at once it crowds thunderously down 

to his feet, 
And there fronts you, stark, black, but alive yet, your 

mountain of old, 
With his rents, the successive bequeathings of ages 

untold — no 

Yea, each harm got in fighting your battles, each fur- 
row and scar 
Of his head thrust 'twixt you and the tempest — all 

hail, there they are ! 
— Now again to be softened with verdure, again hold 

the nest 
Of the dove, tempt the goat and its young to the green 

on his crest 
For their food in the ardors of summer. One long 

shudder thrilled 
All the tent till the very air tingled, then sank and was 

stilled 
At the King's self left standing before me, released and 

aware. 
What was gone, what remained ? All to traverse 'twixt 

hope and despair. 
Death was past, life not come : so he waited. Awhile 

his right hand 



Saul 185 

Held the brow, helped the eyes left too vacant forth- 
with to remand 120 

To their place what new objects should enter : 't was 
Saul as before. 

I looked up and dared gaze at those eyes, nor was 
hurt any more 

Than by slow pallid sunsets in autumn, ye watch from 
the shore. 

At their sad level gaze o'er the ocean — a sun's slow 
decline 

Over hills which, resolved in stern silence, o'erlap and 
entwine 

Base with base, to knit strength more intensely : so 
arm folded arm 

O'er the chest whose slow heavings subsided. 

What spell or what charm, 
(For awhile there was trouble within me,) what next 

should I urge 
To sustain him where song had restored him? — Song 

filled to the verge 
His cup with the wine of this life, pressing all that it 

yields 130 

Of mere fruitage, the strength and the beauty : beyond, 

on what fields. 
Glean a vintage more potent and perfect to brighten 

the eye 
And bring blood to the lip, and commend them the 

cup they put by? 
He saith, " It is good ; " still he drinks not : he lets 

me praise life, 
Gives assent, yet would die for his own part. 

Then fancies grew rife 
Which had come long ago on the pasture, when round 

me the sheep 
Fed in silence — above, the one eagle wheeled slow 

as in sleep ; 
And I lay in my hollow and mused on the world that 

might lie 
'Neath his ken, tliough I saw but the strip 'twixt the 

hill and the sky: 



I 86 Saul 

And I laughed — " Since my days are ordained to be 

passed with my flocks, 140 

Let me people at least, with my fancies, the plains and 

the rocks, 
Dream the life I am never to mix with, and image the 

show 
Of mankind as they live in those fashions I hardly shall 

know! 
Schemes of life, its best rules and right uses, the 

courage that gains. 
And the prudence that keeps what men strive for." 

And now these old trains 
Of vague thought came again ; I grew surer ; so, once 

more the string 
Of my harp made response to my spirit, as thus — 

"Yea, my King," 
I began — " thou dost well in rejecting mere comforts 

that spring 
From the mere mortal life held in common by man 

and by brute : 
In our flesh grows the branch of this life, in our soul 

it bears fruit. 150 

Thou hast marked the slow rise of the tree, — how its 

stem trembled first 
Till it passed the kid's lip, the stag's antler; then 

safely outburst 
The fan-branches all round ; and thou mindest when 

these too, in turn, 
Broke a-bloom, and the palm-tree seemed perfect : yet 

more was to learn, 
E'en the good that comes in with the palm-fruit. Our 

dates shall we slight, 
When their juice brings a cure for all sorrow? or care 

for the plight 
Of the palm's self whose slow growth produced them ? 

Not so ! stem and branch 
Shall decay, nor be known in their place, while the 

palm-wine shall stanch 
Every wound of man's spirit in winter. I pour thee 

such wine. 



Saul 187 

Leave the fksh to the fate it was fit for ! the spirit be 

thine ! 160 

By the spirit, when age shall o'ercome thee, thou still 

shalt enjoy 
More indeed than, at first when inconscious, the life of 

a boy. 
Crush that life, and behold its wine running! Each 

deed thou hast done 
Dies, revives, goes to work in the world ; until e'en as 

the sun, 
Looking down on the earth, though clouds spoil him, 

though tempests efface, 
Can find nothing his own deed produced not, must 

everywhere trace 
The results of his past summer-prime, — so, each ray 

of thy will, 
Every flash of thy passion and prowess, long over, 

shall thrill 
Thy whole people, the countless, with ardor, till they 

too give forth 
A like cheer to their sons, who in turn fill the South 

and the North 170 

With the radiance thy deed was the germ of. Ca- 
rouse in the past ! 
But the license of age has its limit ; thou diest at 

last : 
As the lion when age dims his eyeball, the rose at her 

height, 
So with man — so his power and his beauty forever 

take flight. 
No ! Again a long draught of my soul-wine ! Look 

forth o'er the years ! 
Thou hast done now with eyes for the actual ; begin 

with the seer's ! 
Is Saul dead? In the depth of the vale make his 

tomb — bid arise 
A gray mountain of marble heaped four-square, till, 

built to the skies, 
Let it mark where the great First King slumbers: 

whose fame would ye know? 
Up above see the rock's naked face, where the record 

shall go 180 



I 88 Saul 

In great characters cut by the scribe, — Such was Saul, 

so he did ; 
With the sages directing the work, by the populace 

chid, — 
For not half, they '11 affirm, is comprised there ! Which 

fault to amend, 
In the grove with his kind grows the cedar, whereon 

they shall spend 
(See, in tablets 't is level before them) their praise, and 

record, 
With the gold of the graver, Saul's story, — the states- 
man's great word 
Side by side with the poet's sweet comment. The 

river 's a-wave 
With smooth paper-reeds grazing each other when 

prophet-winds rave : 
So the pen gives unborn generations their due and 

their part 
In thy being ! Then, first of the mighty, thank God 

that thou art ! " 190 

And behold while I sang . . . but O Thou who didst 

grant me that day, 
And before it not seldom hast granted thy help to essay, 
Carry on and complete an adventure, — my shield and 

my sword 
In that act where my soul was thy servant, thy word 

was my word, — 
Still be with me, who then, at the summit of human 

endeavor 
And scaling the highest man's thought could, gazed 

hopeless as ever 
On the new stretch of heaven above me — till, mighty 

to save, 
Just one lift of thy hand cleared that distance — God's 

throne from man's grave ! 
Let me tell out my tale to its ending — my voice to 

my heart, 
Which can scarce dare believe in what marvels last night 
I took part, 200 

As this morning I gather the fragments, alone with 

my sheep, 



Satil 189 

And still fear lest the terrible glory evanish like sleep ! 
For I wake in the gray dewy covert, while Hebron 

upheaves 
The dawn struggling with night on his shoulder, and 

Kidron retrieves 
Slow the damage of yesterday's sunshine. 

I say then, — my song 
While I sang thus, assuring the monarch, and ever 

more strong 
Made a proffer of good to console him — he slowly 

resumed 
His old motions and habitudes kingly. The right 

hand replumed 
His black locks to their wonted composure, adjusted 

the swathes 
Of his turban, and see — the huge sweat that his 

countenance bathes, 210 

He wipes off with the robe ; and he girds now his 

loins as of yore, 
And feels slow for the armlets of price, with the clasp 

set before. 
He is Saul, ye remember in glory, — ere error had 

bent 
The broad brow from the daily communion ; and still, 

though much spent 
Be the life and the bearing that front you, the same 

God did choose 
To receive what a man. may waste, desecrate, never 

quite lose. 
So sank he along by the tent-prop till, stayed by the 

pile 
Of his armor and war-cloak and garments, he leaned 

there awhile, 
And sat out my singing, — one arm round the tent- 
prop, to raise 
His bent head, and the other hung slack — till I 
touched on the praise 220 

I foresaw from all men in all time, to the man patient 

there ; 
And thus ended, the harp falling forward. Then first 

I was 'ware 



I 90 Saul 

That he sat, as I say, with my head just above his vast 

knees. 
Which were thrust out on each side around me, like 

oak roots which please 
To encircle a lamb when it slumbers. I looked up to 

know 
If the best I could do had brought solace : he spoke 

not, but slow 
Lifted up the hand slack at his side, till he laid it with 

care 
Soft and grave, but in mild settled will, on my brow : 

through ray hair 
The large fingers were pushed, and he bent back ray 

head with kind power — 
All my face back, intent to peruse it, as men do a 

flower. 230 

Thus held he me there with his great eyes that scrutin- 
ized mine — 
And oh, all my heart how it loved him ! but where 

was the sign? 
I yearned — ' ' Could I help thee, my father, inventing 

a bliss, 
I would add, to that life of the past, both the future 

and this ; 
I would give thee new life altogether, as good, ages 

hence, 
As this moment, — had love but the warrant love's 

heart to dispense ! " 

Then the truth came upon me. No harp more — no 
song more ! outbroke — 

" I have gone the whole round of creation : I saw and 
I spoke : 

I, a work of God's hand for that purpose, received in 
my brain 

And pronounced on the rest of his handwork — re- 
turned him again 240 

His creation's approval or censure : I spoke as I saw : 

I report, as a man may of God's work — all 's love, 
yet all 's law. 



Saul 191 

Now I lay down the judgeship he lent me. Each 

faculty tasked 
To perceive him has gained an abyss where a dewdrop 

was asked. 
Have I knowledge ? confounded it shrivels at Wisdom 

laid bare. 
Have I forethought ? how purblind, how blank, to the 

Infinite Care ! 
Do I task any faculty highest, to image success ? 
I but open my eyes, — and perfection, no more and 

no less. 
In the kind I imagined, full-fronts me, and God is seen 

God 

In the star, in the stone, in the flesh, in the soul and 

the clod. 250 

And thus looking within and around me, I ever renew 

(With that stoop of the soul which in bending upraises 

it too) 
The submission of man's nothing-perfect to God's all- 
complete. 
As by each new obeisance in spirit, I climb to his 

feet. 
Yet with all this abounding experience, this deity 

known, 
I shall dare to discover some province, some gift of 

my own. 
There 's a faculty pleasant to exercise, hard to hood- 
wink, 
I am fain to keep still in abeyance, (I laugh as I think) 
Lest, insisting to claim and parade in it, wot ye, I 

worst 

E'en the Giver in one gift. — Behold, I could love if 

I durst ! 260 

But I sink the pretension, as fearing a man may o'ertake 

God's own speed in the one way of love : I abstain 

for love's sake. 
— What, my soul? see thus far and no farther? when 

doors great and small, 
Nine-and-ninety flew ope at our touch, should the 

hundredth appall ? 
In the least things have faith, yet distrust in the great- 
est of all ? 



192 Saul 

Do I find love so full in my nature, God's ultimate 

gift, 
That I doubt his own love can compete with it ? 

Here, the parts shift? 
Here, the creature surpass the Creator, — the end, 

what Began ? 
Would I fain in my impotent yearning do all for this 

man, 
And dare doubt He alone shall not help him, who yet 

alone can? 270 

Would it ever have entered my mind, the bare will, 

much less power, 
To bestow on this Saul what I sang of, the marvellous 

dower 
Of the life he was gifted and filled with ? to make such 

a soul, 
Such a body, and then such an earth for insphering 

the whole ? 
And doth it not enter my mind (as my warm tears 

attest) 
These good things being given, to go on, and give one 

more, the best? 
Ay, to save and redeem and restore him, maintain at 

the height 
This perfection, — succeed with life's dayspring, death's 

minute of night ? 
Interpose at the difficult minute, snatch Saul the mis- 
take, 
Saul the failure, the ruin he seems now, — and bid him 

awake 280 

From the dream, the probation, the prelude, to find 

himself set 
Clear and safe in new light and new life, — a new 

harmony yet 
To be run, and continued, and ended — who knows? 

— or endure ! 
The man taught enough by life's dream, of the rest to 

make sure ; 
By the pain-throb, triumphantly winning intensified 

bliss, 
And the next world's reward and repose, by the 
struggles in this. 



Saul 193 

" I believe it ! 'T is thou, God, that givest, 't is I 

who receive : 
In the first is the last, in thy will is my power to 

believe. 
All 's one gift : thou canst grant it, moreover, as 

prompt to my prayer 
As I breathe out this breath, as I open these arms to 

the air. 290 

From thy will stream the worlds, life and nature, thy 

dread Sabaoth : 
/will ? — the mere atoms despise me ! Why am I not 

loth 
To look that, even that, in the face too ? Why is it I 

dare 
Think but lightly of such impuissance? What stops 

my despair? 
This : — 't is not what man Does which exalts him, 

but what man Would do ! 
See the King — I would help him but cannot, the 

wishes fall through. 
Could I wrestle to raise him from sorrow, grow poor 

to enrich, 
To fill up his life, starve my own out, I would — 

knowing which, 
I know that my service is perfect. Oh, speak through 

me now ! 
Would I suffer for him that I love ? So wouldst thou 

— so wilt thou! 300 

So shall crown thee the topmost, ineffablest, uttermost 

crown — 
And thy love fill infinitude wholly, nor leave up nor 

down 
One spot for the creature to stand in ! It is by no 

breath, 
Turn of eye, wave of hand, that salvation joins issue 

with death ! 
As thy Love is discovered almighty, almighty be 

proved 
Thy power, that exists with and for it, of being 

Beloved ! 
He who did most, shall bear most ; the strongest shall 

stand the most weak. 
13 



194 Saul 

'T is the weakness in strength, that I cry for! my 

flesh, that I seek 
In the Godhead! I seek and I find it. O Saul, it 

shall be 
A Face Hke my face that receives thee ; a Man like 

to me, 310 

Thou shalt love and be loved by, forever: a Hand 

like this hand 
Shall throw open the gates of new life to thee ! See 

the Christ stand ! " 

I know not too well how 1 found my way home in the 

night. 
There were witnesses, cohorts about me, to left and to 

right, 
Angels, powers, the unuttered, unseen, the alive, the 

aware : 
I repressed, I got through them as hardly, as strug- 

glingly there, 
As a runner beset by the populace famished for 

news — 
Life or death. The whole earth was awakened, hell 

loosed with her crews ; 
And the stars of night beat with emotion, and tingled 

and shot 
Out in fire the strong pain of pent knowledge : but 

I fainted not, 320 

For the Hand still impelled me at once and supported, 

suppressed 
All the tumult, and quenched it with quiet, and holy 

behest, 
Till the rapture was shut in itself, and the earth sank 

to rest. 
Anon at the dawn, all that trouble had vi'ithered from 

earth — 
Not so much, but I saw it die out in the day's tender 

birth ; 
In the gathered intensity brought to the gray of the hills ; 
In the shuddering forests' held breath ; in the sudden 

wind-thrills ; 
In the startled wild beasts that bore off, each with eye 

sidling still 



''De Gtistibus—'' I95 

Though averted with wonder and dread ; in the birds 

stiff and chill 
That rose heavily, as I approached them, made stupid 

with awe : , r i ^^° 

E'en the serpent that slid away silent, — he telt the 

new law. , 

The same stared in the white humid faces upturned 

by the flowers ; 
The same worked in the heart of the cedar and moved 

the vine-bowers : . v 

And the little brooks witnessing murmured, persistent 

and low, . 

With their obstinate, all but hushed voices— ben 

so, it is so ! " 



"DE GUSTIBUS — " 
(1855) 

Your ghost will walk, you lover of trees, 

(If our loves remain) 

In an English lane. 
By a cornfield-side a-flutter with poppies. 
Hark, those two in the hazel coppice — 
A boy and a girl, if the good fates please, 

Making love, say, — 

The happier they ! 
Draw yourself up from the light of the moon, 
And let them pass, as they will too soon, 

With the beanflowers' boon. 

And the blackbird's tune, 

And May, and June ! 

What I love best in all the world 
Is a castle, precipice-encurled, 
In a gash of the wind-grieved Apennine. 
Or look for me, old fellow of mine, 
(If I get my head from out the mouth 
O' the grave, and loose my spirit's bands, 
And come again to the land of lands) — 
In a sea-side house to the farther South, 



196 Holy-Cross Day 

Where the baked cicala dies of drouth, 

And one sharp tree — 'tis a cypress — stands, 

By the many hundred years red-rusted, 

Rough iron-spiked, ripe fruit-o'ercrusted;, 

My sentinel to guard the sands 

To the water's edge. For, what expands 

Before the house, but the great opaque 

Blue breadth of sea without a break ? 

While, in the house, forever crumbles 30 

Some fragment of the frescoed walls, 

From blisters where a scorpion sprawls. 

A girl bare-footed brings, and tumbles 

Down on the pavement, green-flesh melons, 

And says there 's news to-day — the king 

Was shot at, touched in the liver-wing. 

Goes with his Bourbon arm in a sling : 

— She hopes they have not caught the felons. 

Italy, my Italy ! 

Queen Mary's saying serves for me — 40 

(When fortune's malice 

Lost her Calais) 
Open my heart and you will see 
Graved inside of it, "Italy." 
Such lovers old are I and she : 
So it always was^ so shall ever be ! 



HOLY-CROSS DAY 

ON WHICH THE JEWS WERE FORCED TO ATTEND AN 
ANNUAL CHRISTIAN SERMON IN ROME 

(1855) 

"Now was come about Holy-Cross Day, and now 
must my lord preach his first sermon to the Jews : as 
it was of old cared for in the merciful bowels of the 
Church, that, so to speak, a crumb at least from her 
conspicuous table here in Rome should be, though 
but once yearly, cast to the famishing dogs, under- 
trampled and bespitten-upon beneath the feet of the 
guests. And a moving sight in truth, this, of so many 



Holy-Cross Day 197 

of the besotted blind restif and ready-to-perish He- 
brews ! now maternally brought — nay, (for He saith, 
* Compel them to come in ') haled, as it were, by the 
head and hair, and against their obstinate hearts, to 
partake of the heavenly grace. What awakening, what 
striving with tears, what working of a yeasty conscience ! 
Nor was my lord wanting to himself on so apt an oc- 
casion ; witness the abundance of conversions which 
did incontinently reward him : though not to my lord 
be altogether the glory." — Diary by the Bishop'' s 
Secretary, i6oo. 

What the Jews really said, on thus being driven to 
church, was rather to this effect : — 

"Fee, faw, fum ! bubble and squeak ! 
Blessedest Thursday 's the fat of the week. 
Rumble and tumble, sleek and rough, 
Stinking and savory, smug and gruff. 
Take the church-road, for the bell's due chime 
Gives us the summons — 't is sermon-time !t- 

Boh, here 's Barnabas ! Job, that 's you ? 

Up stumps Solomon — bustling too ? 

Shame, man ! greedy beyond your years 

To handsel the bishop's shaving-shears? 10 

Fair play 's a jewel ! Leave friends in the lurch? 

Stand on a line ere you start for the church ! 

Higgledy piggledy, packed we lie, 
Rats in a hamper, swine in a sty, 
Wasps in a bottle, frogs in a sieve. 
Worms in a carcass, fleas in a sleeve. 
Hist ! square shoulders, settle your thumbs 
And buzz for the bishop — here he comes. 

Bow, wow, wow — a bone for the dog! 

I liken his Grace to an acorned hog. 20 

What, a boy at his side, with the bloom of a lass, 

To help and handle my lord's hour-glass ! 

Didst ever behold so lithe a chine ? 

His cheek hath laps Hke a fresh-singed swine. 



198 Holy-Cross Day 

Aaron 's asleep — shove hip to haunch, 

Or somebody deal him a dig in the paunch ! 

Look at the purse with the tassel and knob, 

And the gown with the angel and thingumbob ! 

What's he at, quotha? reading his text! 

Now you 've his curtsey — and what comes next? 30 

See to our converts — you doomed black dozen — 

No stealing away — nor cog nor cozen ! 

You five, that were thieves, deserve it fairly ; 

You seven, that were beggars, will live less sparely ; 

You took your turn and dipped in the hat. 

Got fortune — and fortune gets you ; mind that ! 

Give your first groan — compunction 's at work ; 

And soft ! from a Jew you mount to a Turk. 

Lo, Micah, — the selfsame beard on chin 

He was four times already converted in ! 40 

Here 's a knife, clip quick — it 's a sign of grace — 

Or he ruins us all with his hanging-face. 

Whom now is the bishop a-leering at ? 

I know a point where his text falls pat. 

I '11 tell him to-morrow, a word just now 

Went to my heart and made me vow 

I meddle no more with the worst of trades — 

Let somebody else pay his serenades. 

Groan all together now, whee — hee — hee ! 

It 's a-work, it 's a-work, ah, woe is me ! 50 

It began, when a herd of us, picked and placed, 

Were spurred through the Corso, stripped to the waist ; 

Jew brutes, with sweat and blood well spent 

To usher in worthily Christian Lent. 

It grew, when the hangman entered our bounds, 

Yelled, pricked us out to his church like hounds : 

It got to a pitch, when the hand indeed 

Which gutted my purse would throttle my creed : 

And it overflows, when, to even the odd, 

Men I helped to their sins helped me to their God. 60 



Holy-Cross Day 199 

But now, while the scapegoats leave our flock, 
And the rest sit silent and count the clock, 
Since forced to muse the appointed time 
On these precious facts and truths sublime, — 
Let us fitly employ it, under our breath, 
In saying Ben Ezra's Song of Death. 

For Rabbi Ben Ezra, the night he died, 

Called sons and sons' sons to his side, 

And spoke, " This world has been harsh and strange ; 

Something is wrong : there needeth a change. 70 

But what, or where? at the last or first? 

In one point only we sinned, at worst. 

" The Lord will have mercy on Jacob yet, 
And again in his border see Israel set. 
When Judah beholds Jerusalem, 
The stranger-seed shall be joined to them : 
To Jacob's House shall the Gentiles cleave. 
So the Prophet saith and his sons believe. 

" Ay, the children of the chosen race 
Shall carry and bring them to their place : 80 

In the land of the Lord shall lead the same, 
Bondsmen and handmaids. Who shall blame, 
When the slaves enslave, the oppressed ones o'er 
The oppressor triumph forevermore? 

" God spoke, and gave us the word to keep : 

Bade never fold the hands nor sleep 

'Mid a faithless world, — at watch and ward, 

Till Christ at the end reHeve our guard. 

By his servant Moses the watch was set : 

Though near upon cock-crow, we keep it yet. 90 

"Thou! if thou wast He, who. at mid- watch came, 

By the starlight, naming a dubious name ! 

And if, too heavy with sleep — too rash 

With fear — O thou, if that martyr-gash 

Fell on thee coming to take thine own, 

And we gave the Cross, when we owed the Throne — 



200 Holy-Cross Day 

"Thou art the Judge. We are bruised thus. 

But, the Judgment over, join sides with us ! 

Thine too is the cause ! and not more thine 

Than ours, is the work of these dogs and swine, i oo 

Whose life laughs through and spits at their creed, 

Who maintain thee in word, and defy thee in deed ! 

" We withstood Christ then ? Be mindful how 
At least we withstand Barabbas now ! 
Was our outrage sore ? But the worst we spared, 
To have called these — Christians, had we dared ! 
Let defiance to them pay mistrust of thee, 
And Rome make amends for Calvary ! 

" By the torture, prolonged from age to age, 

By the infamy, Israel's heritage, no 

By the Ghetto's plague, by the garb's disgrace, 

By the badge of shame, by the felon's place, 

By the branding- tool, the bloody whip, 

And the summons to Christian fellowship, — 

" We boast our proof that at least the Jew 

Would wrest Christ's name from the Devil's crewo 

Thy face took never so deep a shade 

But we fought them in it, God our aid ! 

A trophy to bear, as we march, thy band, 

South, East, and on to the Pleasant Land! " ^ 120 

1 Pope Gregory XVI. abolished this bad business of the 
Sermon. — R. B. 



Cleon 20 1 

CLEON 

(1855) 

" As certain also of your own poets have said " — 

Cleon the poet (from the sprinkled isles, 

Lily on lily, that o'erlace the sea, 

And laugh their pride when the light wave lisps 

" Greece ") — 
To Protus in his Tyranny : much health ! 

They give thy letter to me, even now : 
I read and seem as if I heard thee speak. 
The master of thy galley still unlades 
Gift after gift ; they block my court at last 
And pile themselves along its portico, 
Royal with sunset, like a thought of thee : 10 

And one white she-slave from the group dispersed 
Of black and white slaves (like the chequer-work 
Pavement, at once my nation's work and gift, 
Now covered with this settle-down of doves), 
One lyric woman, in her crocus vest 
Woven of sea-wools, with her two white hands 
Commends to me the strainer and the cup 
Thy lip hath bettered ere it blesses mine. 

Well-counselled, king, in thy munificence ! 
For so shall men remark, in such an act 20 

Of love for him whose song gives life its joy. 
Thy recognition of the use of hfe ; 
Nor call thy spirit barely adequate 
To help on life in straight ways, broad enough 
For vulgar souls, by ruling and the rest. 
Thou, in the daily building of thy tower, — 
Whether in fierce and sudden spasms of toil, 
Or through dim lulls of unapparent growth, 
Or when the general work 'mid good acclaim 
Climbed with the eye to cheer the architect, — 30 

Didst ne'er engage in work for mere work's sake — 
Hadst ever in thy heart the luring hope 
Of some eventual rest a-top of it, 



202 Cleon 

Whence, all the tumult of the building hushed, 
Thou first of men mightst look out to the East : 
The vulgar saw thy tower, thou sawest the sun. 
For this, I promise on thy festival 
To pour libation, looking o'er the sea, 
Making this slave narrate thy fortunes, speak 
Thy great words, and describe thy royal face — 40 
Wishing thee wholly where Zeus lives the most, 
Within the eventual element of calm. 

Thy letter's first requirement meets me here. 
It is as thou hast heard : in one short life 
I, Cleon, have effected all those things 
Thou wonderingly dost enumerate. 
That epos on thy hundred plates of gold 
Is mine, — and also mine the little chant, 
So sure to rise from every fishing-bark 
When, lights at prow, the seamen haul their net. 50 
The image of the sun-god on the phare, 
Men turn from the sun's self to see, is mine ; 
The Poecile, o'er-storied its whole length. 
As thou didst hear, with painting, is mine too. 
I know the true proportions of a man 
And woman also, not observed before ; 
And I have written three books on the soul, 
Proving absurd all written hitherto, 
And putting us to ignorance again. 
For music, — why, I have combined the moods, 60 
Inventing one. In brief, all arts are mine ; 
Thus much the people know and recognize, 
Throughout our seventeen islands. Marvel not. 
We of these latter days, with greater mind 
Than our forerunners, since more composite, 
Look not so great, beside their simple way, 
To a judge who only sees one way at once. 
One mind-point and no other at a time, — 
Compares the small part of a man of us 
With some whole man of the heroic age, 70 

Great in his way — not ours, nor meant for ours. 
And ours is greater, had we skill to know : 
For, what we call this life of men on earth, 
This sequence of the soul's achievements here 



Cleon 203 

Being, as I find much reason to conceive, 

Intended to be viewed eventually 

As a great whole, not analyzed to parts, 

But each part having reference to all, — 

How shall a certain part, pronounced complete, 

Endure effacement by another part? _ 80 

Was the thing done ? — then, what 's to do again ? 

See, in the chequered pavement opposite. 

Suppose the artist made a perfect rhomb, 

And next a lozenge, then a trapezoid — 

He did not overlay them, superimpose 

The new upon the old and blot it out, 

But laid them on a level in his work. 

Making at last a picture ; there it Hes. 

So, first the perfect separate forms were made, 

The portions of mankind ; and after, so, 90 

Occurred the combination of the same. 

For where had been a progress, otherwise ? 

Mankind, made up of all the single men, — 

In such a synthesis the labor ends. 

Now mark me ! those divine men of old time 

Have reached, thou sayest well, each at one point 

The outside verge that rounds our faculty ; 

And where they reached, who can do more than 

reach ? 
It takes but little water just to touch 
At some one point the inside of a sphere, 100 

And, as we turn the sphere, touch all the rest 
In due succession : but the finer air 
Which not so palpably nor obviously, 
Though no less universally, can touch 
The whole circumference of that emptied sphere, 
Fills it more fully than the water did ; 
Holds thrice the weight of water in itself. 
Resolved into a subtler element. 
And yet the vulgar call the sphere first full 
Up to the visible height — and after, void ; no 

Not knowing air's more hidden properties. 
And thus our soul, misknown, cries out to Zeus 
To vindicate his purpose in our life : 
Why stay we on the earth unless to grow ? 
Long since, I imaged, wrote the fiction out. 



204 Cleon 

That he or other god descended here 

And, once for all, showed simultaneously 

What, in its nature, never can be shown, 

Piecemeal or in succession; — showed, I say, 

The worth both absolute and relative 120 

Of all his children from the birth of time, 

His instruments for all appointed work. 

I now go on to image, — might we hear 

The judgment which should give the due to each, 

Show where the labor lay and where the ease, 

And prove Zeus' self, the latent everywhere ! 

This is a dream : — but no dream, let us hope. 

That years and days, the summers and the springs, 

Follow each other with unwaning powers. 

The grapes which dye thy wine are richer far, 130 

Through culture, than the wild wealth of the rock ; 

The suave plum than the savage-tasted drupe ; 

The pastured honey-bee drops choicer sweet ; 

The flowers turn double, and the leaves turn flowers ; 

That young and tender crescent-moon, thy slave, 

Sleeping above her robe as buoyed by clouds, 

Refines upon the women of my youth. 

What, and the soul alone deteriorates? 

I have not chanted verse like Homer, no — 

Nor swept string like Terpander, no — nor carved 140 

And painted men like Phidias and his friend : 

I am not great as they are, point by point, 

But I have entered into sympathy 

With these four, running these into one soul, 

Who, separate, ignored each other's art. 

Say, is it nothing that I know them all ? 

The wild flower was the larger ; I have dashed 

Rose-blood upon its petals, pricked its cup's 

Honey with wine, and driven its seed to fruit, 

And show a better flower if not so large : 150 

I stand myself. Refer this to the gods 

Whose gift alone it is ! which, shall I dare, 

(All pride apart) upon the absurd pretext 

That such a gift by chance lay in my hand. 

Discourse of lightly or depreciate ? 

It might have fallen to another's hand : what then? 

I pass too surely : let at least truth stay ! 



Cleon 205 

And next, of what thou followest on to ask. 
This being with me as I declare, O king, 
My works, in all these varicolored kinds, 160 

So done by me, accepted so by men, — 
Thou askest, if (my soul thus in men's hearts) 
I must not be accounted to attain 
The very crown and proper end of life ? 
Inquiring thence how, now life closeth up, 
I face death with success in my right hand : 
Whether I fear death less than dost thyself 
The fortunate of men ? " For " (writest thou) 
" Thou leavest much behind, while I leave naught. 
Thy Hfe stays in the poems men shall sing, 170 

The pictures men shall study ; while my life, 
Complete and whole now in its power and joy, 
Dies altogether with my brain and arm, 
Is lost indeed ; since, what survives myself? 
The brazen statue to o'erlook my grave. 
Set on the promontory which I named. 
And that — some supple courtier of my heir 
Shall use its robed and sceptred arm, perhaps, 
To fix the rope to, which best drags it down. 
I go then : triumph thou, who dost not go !" 180 

Nay, thou art worthy of hearing my whole mind. 
Is this apparent, when thou turn'st to muse 
Upon the scheme of earth and man in chief, 
That admiration grows as knowledge grows? 
That imperfection means perfection hid. 
Reserved in part, to grace the after-time ? 
If, in the morning of philosophy. 
Ere aught had been recorded, nay perceived, 
Thou, with the light now in thee, couldst have looked 
On all earth's tenantry, from worm to bird, 190 

Ere man, her last, appeared upon the stage — 
Thou wouldst have seen them perfect, and deduced 
The perfectness of others yet unseen. 
Conceding which, — had Zeus then questioned thee, 
" Shall I go on a step, improve on this. 
Do more for visible creatures than is done?" 
Thou wouldst have answered, " Ay, by making each 
Grow conscious in himself — by that alone, 



2o6 Cleon 

All 's perfect else : the shell sucks fast the rock, 
The fish strikes through the sea, the snake both 
swims 200 

And slides, forth range the beasts, the birds take flight, 
Till life's mechanics can no further go — 
And all this joy in natural life is put 
Like fire from off thy finger into each, 
So exquisitely perfect is the same. 
But 't is pure fire, and they mere matter are ; 
It has them, not they it : and so I choose 
For man, thy last premeditated work 
(If I might add a glory to the scheme). 
That a third thing should stand apart from both, 210 
A quality arise within his soul, 
Which, intro-active, made to supervise 
And feel the force it has, may view itself. 
And so be happy." Man might live at first 
The animal life : but is there nothing more? 
In due time, let him critically learn 
How he lives ; and, the more he gets to know 
Of his own life's adaptabihties, 
The more joy-giving will his life become. 
Thus man, who hath this quality, is best. 220 

But thou, king, hadst more reasonably said : 
" Let progress end at once, — man make no step 
Beyond the natural man, the better beast. 
Using his senses, not the sense of sense." 
In man there 's failure only since he left 
The lower and inconscious forms of Hfe. 
We called it an advance, the rendering plain 
Man's spirit might grow conscious of man's life, 
And, by new lore so added to the old, 
Take each step higher over the brute's head. 230 

This grew the only life, the pleasure-house, 
Watch-tower and treasure-fortress of the soul, 
Which whole surrounding flats of natural life 
Seemed only fit to yield subsistence to ; 
A tower that crowns a country. But alas. 
The soul now climbs it just to perish there ! 
For thence we have discovered ('t is no dream — 
We know this, which we had not else perceived) 



Cleon 207 

That there 's a world of capability 

For joy, spread round about us, meant for us, 240 

Inviting us ; and still the soul craves all 

And still the flesh replies, " Take no jot more 

Than ere thou clombst the tower to look abroad! 

Nay, so much less as that fatigue has brought 

Deduction to it." We struggle, fain to enlarge 

Our bounded physical recipiency, 

Increase our power, supply fresh oil to life, 

Repair the waste of age and sickness : no. 

It skills not ! life 's inadequate to joy, 

As the soul sees joy, tempting life to take. 250 

They praise a fountain in my garden here 

Wherein a Naiad sends the water-bow 

Thin from her tube ; she smiles to see it rise. 

What if I told her, it is just a thread 

From that great river which the hills shut up, 

And mock her with my leave to take the same ? 

The artificer has given her one small tube 

Past power to widen or exchange — what boots 

To know she might spout oceans if she could ? 

She cannot lift beyond her first thin thread : 260 

And so a man can use but a man's joy. 

While he sees God's. Is it for Zeus to boast, 

" See, man, how happy I live, and despair — 

That I may be still happier — for thy use ! " 

If this were so, we could not thank our lord, 

As hearts beat on to doing ; 't is not so — 

Malice it is not. Is it carelessness ? 

Still, no. If care — ^ where is the sign? I ask, 

And get no answer, and agree in sum, 

O king, with thy profound discouragement, 270 

Who seest the wider but to sigh the more. 

Most progress is most failure : thou sayest well. 

The last point now : — thou dost except a case — 
Holding joy not impossible to one 
With artist-gifts — to such a man as I, 
Who leave behind me living works indeed ; 
For, such a poem, such a painting, lives. 
What ? dost thou verily trip upon a word. 
Confound the accurate view of what joy is 



2o8 Cleon 

(Caught somewhat clearer by my eyes than thine) 280 

With feehng joy? confound the knowing how 

And showing how to Hve (my faculty) 

With actually living ? — Otherwise 

Where is the artist's vantage o'er the king? 

Because in my great epos I display 

How divers men, young, strong, fair, wise, can act — 

Is this as though I acted ? if I paint, 

Carve the young Phoebus, am I therefore young? 

Methinks I 'm older that I bowed myself 

The many years of pain that taught me art ! 290 

Indeed, to know is something, and to prove 

How all this beauty might be enjoyed, is more : 

But, knowing naught, to enjoy is something too ; 

Yon rower, with the moulded muscles there, 

Lowering the sail, is nearer it than I. 

I can write love-odes : thy fair slave 's an ode. 

I get to sing of love, when grown too gray 

For being beloved : she turns to that young man, 

The muscles all a-ripple on his back. 

I know the joy of kingship : well, thou art king ! 300 

" But," sayest thou — (and I marvel, I repeat, 
To find thee trip on such a mere word) " what 
Thou writest, paintest, stays ; that does not die : 
Sappho survives, because we sing her songs, 
And ^schylus, because we read his plays ! " 
Why, if they live still, let them come and take 
Thy slave in my despite, drink from thy cup, 
Speak in my place. Thou diest while I survive? 
Say rather that my fate is deadlier still. 
In this, that every day my sense of joy 310 

Grows more acute, my soul (intensified 
By power and insight) more enlarged, more keen ; 
While every day my hairs fall more and more. 
My hand shakes, and the heavy years increase — 
The horror quickening still from year to year, 
The consummation coming past escape. 
When I shall know most, and yet least enjoy — 
When all my works wherein I prove my worth, 
Being present still to mock me in men's mouths. 
Alive still in the praise of such as thou, 320 



Cleon 209 

I, I, the feeling, thinking, acting man, 

The man who loved his life so over-much, 

Sleep in my urn. It is so horrible, 

I dare at times imagine to my need 

Some future state revealed to us by Zeus, 

Unlimited in capability 

For joy as this is in desire for joy, 

— To seek which, the joy-hunger forces us : 

That, stung by straitness of our life, made strait 

On purpose to make prized the Hfe at large — 330 

Freed by the throbbing impulse we call death, 

We burst there as the worm into the fly, 

Who, while a worm still, wants his wings. But no ! 

Zeus has not yet revealed it ; and, alas ! 

He must have done so were it possible ! 

Live long and happy, and in that thought die : 
Glad for what was ! Farewell. And for the rest, 
I cannot tell thy messenger aright 
Where to deliver what he bears of thine 
To one called Paulus ; we have heard his fame. 340 
Indeed, if Christus be not one with him — 
I know not, nor am troubled much to know. 
Thou canst not think a mere barbarian Jew, 
As Paulus proves to be, one circumcised, 
Hath access to a secret shut from us ? 
Thou wrongest our philosophy, O king. 
In stooping to inquire of such an one, — 
As if his answer could impose at all ! 
He writeth, doth he ? well, and he may write. 
Oh, the Jew findeth scholars ! certain slaves 350 

Who touched on this same isle, preached him and 

Christ ; 
And (as I gathered from a bystander) 
Their doctrine could be held by no sane man. 



14 



2IO Two in the Campagna 

TWO IN THE CAMPAGNA 

(185s) 

I wonder do you feel to-day 

As I have felt since, hand in hand, 

We sat down on the grass, to stray 
In spirit better through the land, 

This morn of Rome and May ? 

For me, I touched a thought, I know, 

Has tantalized me many times 
(Like turns of thread the spiders throw 

Mocking across our path) for rhymes 
To catch at and let go. 10 

Help me to hold it ! First it left 

The yellowing fennel, run to seed 
There, branching from the brickwork's cleft, 

Some old tomb's ruin : yonder weed 
Took up the floating weft, 

Where one small orange cup amassed 

Five beetles, — blind and green they grope 

Among the honey-meal : and last. 
Everywhere on the grassy slope 

I traced it. Hold it fast! 20 

The champaign with its endless fleece 

Of feathery grasses everywhere ! 
Silence and passion, joy and peace, 

An everlasting wash of air — 
Rome's ghost since her decease. 

Such Ufe here, through such lengths of hours, 

Such miracles performed in play. 
Such primal naked forms of flowers. 

Such letting nature have her way 
While heaven looks from its towers ! 30 



Two in the Campagna 211 

How say you ? Let us, O my dove, 

Let us be unasliamed of soul, 
As earth lies bare to heaven above ! 

How is it under our control 
To love or not to love ? 

I would that you were all to me, 
You that are just so much, no more. 

Nor yours nor mine, nor slave nor free ! 
Where does the fault lie ? What the core 

O' the wound, since wound must be ? 40 

I would I could adopt your will, 

See with your eyes, and set my heart 

Beating by yours, and drink my fill 

At your soul's springs, — your part my part 

In life, for good and ill. 

No. I yearn upward, touch you close, 
Then stand away. I kiss your cheek. 

Catch your soul's warmth, — I pluck the rose 
And love it more than tongue can speak — 

Then the good minute goes. 50 

Already how am I so far 

Out of that minute ? Must I go 
Still like the thistle-ball, no bar. 

Onward, whenever light winds blow, 
Fixed by no friendly star ? 

Just when I seemed about to learn ! 

Where is the thread now ? Off again ! 
The old trick ! Only I discern — 

Infinite passion, and the pain 
Of finite hearts that yearn. 60 



212 A Grammariaii s Funeral 



A GRAMMARIAN'S FUNERAL 

(shortly after the revival of learning in 

EUROPE) 

(185s) 

Let us begin and carry up this corpse, 

Singing together. 
Leave we the common crofts, the vulgar thorpes 

Each in its tether 
Sleeping safe on the bosom of the plain, 

Cared-for till cock-crow : 
Look out if yonder be not day again 

Rimming the rock-row ! 
That 's the appropriate country ; there, man's thought, 

Rarer, intenser, 10 

Self-gathered for an outbreak, as it ought, 

Chafes in the censer. 
Leave we the unlettered plain its herd and crop ; 

Seek we sepulture 
On a tall mountain, citied to the top. 

Crowded with culture ! 
All the peaks soar, but one the rest excels ; 

Clouds overcome it ; 
No ! yonder sparkle is the citadel's 

Circling its summit. 20 

Thither our path lies ; wind we up the heights ; 

Wait ye the warning ? 
Our low life was the level's and the night's ; 

He 's for the morning. 
Step to a tune, square chests, erect each head, 

'Ware the beholders ! 
This is our master, famous, calm and dead, 

Borne on our shoulders. 

Sleep, crop and herd ! sleep, darkling thorpe and croft, 
Safe from the weather ! 30 

He, whom we convoy to his grave aloft. 
Singing together, 

He was a man born with thy face and throat, 
Lyric Apollo ! 



A Grammarians Funeral 213 

Long he lived nameless : how should Spring take note 

Winter would follow ? 
Till Id, the little touch, and youth was gone ! 

Cramped and diminished, 
Moaned he, " New measures, other feet anon! 

My dance is finished "? 40 

No, that 's the world's way : (keep the mountain-side, 

Make for the city !) 
He knew the signal, and stepped on with pride 

Over men's pity ; 
Left play for work, and grappled with the world 

Bent on escaping : 
" What 's in the scroll," quoth he, " thou keepest 
furled? 

Show me their shaping, 
Theirs who most studied man, the bard and sage, — 

Give! " — So, he gowned him, 50 

Straight got by heart that book to its last page : 

Learned we found him. 
Yea, but we found him bald too, eyes like lead, 

Accents uncertain : 
"Time to taste life," another would have said, 

" Up with the curtain ! " 
This man said rather, "Actual life comes next? 

Patience a moment ! 
Grant I have mastered learning's crabbed text, 

Still there 's the comment. 60 

Let mc know all ! Prate not of most or least, 

Painful or easy ! 
Even to the crumbs I 'd fain eat up the feast, 

Ay, nor feel queasy." 
Oh, such a life as he resolved to live 

When he had learned it. 
When he had gathered all books had to give ! 

Sooner, he spurned it. 
Image the whole, then execute the parts — 

Fancy the fabric 70 

Quite, ere you build, ere steel strike fire from quartz, 

Ere mortar dab brick ! 

(Here 's the town-gate reached : there 's the market- 
place 
Gaping before us.) 



214 ^ Grammarians Funeral 

Yea, this in him was the peculiar grace 

(Hearten our chorus !) 
That before hving he 'd learn how to live — 

No end to learning : 
Earn the means first — God surely will contrive 

Use for our earning. 80 

Others mistrust and say, " But time escapes : 

Live now or never ! " 
He said, " What 's time ? Leave Now for dogs and apes ! 

Man has Forever." 
Back to his book then : deeper drooped his head : 

Calculus racked him : 
Leaden before, his eyes grew dross of lead : 

Tussis attacked him. 
" Now, master, take a little rest ! " — not he ! 

(Caution redoubled, 90 

Step two abreast, the way winds narrowly !) 

Not a whit troubled, 
Back to his studies, fresher than at first, 

Fierce as a dragon 
He (soul-hydroptic with a sacred thirst) 

Sucked at the flagon. 
Oh, if we draw a circle premature, 

Heedless of far gain, 
Greedy for quick returns of profit, sure 

Bad is our bargain ! 100 

Was it not great? did not he throw on God, 

(He loves the burthen) — 
God's task to make the heavenly period 

Perfect the earthen? 
Did not he magnify the mind, show clear 

Just what it all meant ? 
He would not discount life, as fools do here, 

Paid by instalment. 
He ventured neck or nothing — heaven's success 

Found, or earth's failure : no 

" Wilt thou trust death or not ? " He answered " Yes ! 

Hence with life's pale lure ! " 
That low man seeks a little thing to do, 

Sees it and does it : 
This high man, with a great thing to pursue, 

Dies ere he knows it. 



A Grammaria7is Funeral 215 

That low man goes on adding one to one, 

His hundred 's soon hit : 
This high man, aiming at a million, 

Misses an unit. 120 

That, has the world here — should he need the next, 

Let the world mind him ! 
This, throws himself on God, and, unperplexed, 

Seeking shall find him. 
So, with the throttling hands of death at strife, 

Ground he at grammar ; 
Still, through the rattle, parts of speech were rife : 

While he could stammer 
He settled Hotis business — let it be ! — 

Properly based Onn — 130 

Gave us the doctrine of the enclitic De, 

Dead from the waist down. 
Well, here 's the platform, here 's the proper place : 

Hail to your purlieus. 
All ye highfliers of the feathered race. 

Swallows and curlews ! 
Here 's the top-peak ; the multitude below 

Live, for they can, there : 
This man decided not to Live but Know — 

Bury this man there ? 140 

Here — here 's his place, where meteors shoot, clouds 
form. 

Lightnings are loosened, 
Stars come and go ! Let joy break with the storm. 

Peace let the dew send ! 
Lofty designs must close in Hke effects : 

Loftily lying. 
Leave him — still loftier than the world suspects. 

Living and dying. 



2i6 Transcendentalism 



"TRANSCENDENTALISM: A POEM 
IN TWELVE BOOKS" 

(1855) 

Stop playing, poet ! May a brother speak ? 

'T is you speak, tliat 's your error. Song 's our art : 

Whereas you please to speak these naked thoughts 

Instead of draping them in sights and sounds. 

— True thoughts, good thoughts, thoughts fit to 

treasure up ! 
But why such long prolusion and display, 
Such turning and adjustment of the harp, 
And taking it upon your breast, at length. 
Only to speak dry words across its strings? 
Stark-naked thought is in request enough : 10 

Speak prose, and hollo it till Europe hears ! 
The six-foot Swiss tube, braced about with bark, 
Which helps the hunter's voice from Alp to Alp — 
Exchange our harp for that, — who hinders you ? 

But here 's your fault : grown men want thought, 

you think ; 
Thought's what they mean by verse, and seek in 

verse : 
Boys seek for images and melody. 
Men must have reason — so, you aim at men. 
Quite otherwise ! Objects throng our youth, 't is true ; 
We see and hear and do not wonder much : 20 

If you could tell us what they mean, indeed ! 
As German Boehme never cared for plants 
Until it happed, a-walking in the fields, 
He noticed all at once that plants could speak, 
Nay, turned with loosened tongue to talk with him, 
That day the daisy had an eye indeed — 
Colloquized with the cowslip on such themes ! 
We find them extant yet in Jacob's prose. 
But by the time youth shps a stage or two 
While reading prose in that tough book he wrote 30 
(Collating and emandating the same 



Misconceptions 217 

And settling on the sense most to our mind), 

We shut the clasps and find life's summer past. 

Then, who helps more, pray, to repair our loss — 

Another Boehme, with a tougher book 

And subtler meanings of what roses say, — 

Or some stout Mage like him of Halberstadt, 

John, who made things Boehme wrote thoughts about? 

He with a " look you ! " vents a brace of rhymes, 

And in there breaks the sudden rose herself, 40 

Over us, under, round us every side. 

Nay, in and out the tables and the chairs 

And musty volumes, Boehme's book and all, — 

Buries us with a glory, young once more. 

Pouring heaven into this shut house of life. 

So come, the harp back to your heart again ! 
You are a poem, though your poem 's naught. 
The best of all you showed before, believe, 
Was your own boy-face o'er the finer chords 
Bent, following the cherub at the top 50 

That points to God with his paired half-moon wings. 



MISCONCEPTIONS 

(1855) 

This is a spray the Bird clung to, 

Making it blossom with pleasure. 

Ere the high tree-top she sprung to, 

Fit for her nest and her treasure. 

Oh, what a hope beyond measure 

Was the poor spray's, which the flying feet hung to, — 

So to be singled out, built in, and sung to ! 

This is a heart the Queen leant on, 

Thrilled in a minute erratic. 
Ere the true bosom she bent on, 10 

Meet for love's regal dalmatic. 
Oh, what a fancy ecstatic 
Was the poor heart's, ere the wanderer went on — 
Love to be saved for it, proffered to, spent on 1 



2i8 One Word More 

ONE WORD MORE 

TO E. B. B. 
(1855) 

There they are, my fifty men and women, 
Naming me the fifty poems finished ! 
Take them, Love, the book and me together: 
Where the heart Ues, let the brain he also. 

Rafael made a century of sonnets, 

Made and wrote them in a certain volume 

Dinted with the silver-pointed pencil 

Else he only used to draw Madonnas : 

These, the world might view — but one, the volume. 

Who that one, you ask? Your heart instructs you. 10 

Did she live and love it all her lifetime? 

Did she drop, his lady of the sonnets, 

Die, and let it drop beside her pillow 

Where it lay in place of Rafael's glory, 

Rafael's cheek so duteous and so loving — 

Cheek, the world was wont to hail a painter's, 

Rafael's cheek, her love had turned a poet's ? 

You and I would rather read that volume, 

(Taken to his beating bosom by it) 

Lean and list the bosom-beats of Rafael, 20 

Would we not? than wonder at Madonnas — 

Her, San Sisto names, and Her, Foligno, 

Her, that visits Florence in a vision, 

Her, that 's left with lilies in the Louvre — 

Seen by us and all the world in circle. 

You and I will never read that volume. 

Guido Reni, like his own eye's apple 

Guarded long the treasure-book and loved it. 

Guido Reni dying, all Bologna 

Cried, and the world cried too, "Ours, the treasure ! " 30 

Suddenly, as rare things will, it vanished. 



One Word More 219 

Dante once prepared to paint an angel : 

Whom to please? You whisper "Beatrice." 

While he mused and traced it and retraced it, 

(Peradventure with a pen corroded 

Still by drops of that hot ink he dipped for, 

When, his left-hand i' the hair o' the wicked. 

Back he held the brow and pricked its stigma, 

Bit into the live man's flesh for parchment, 

Loosed him, laughed to see the writing rankle, 40 

Let the wretch go festering through Florence) — 

Dante, who loved well because he hated, 

Hated wickedness that hinders loving, 

Dante standing, studying his angel, — 

In there broke the folk of his Inferno. 

Says he — " Certain people of importance " 

(Such he gave his daily dreadful line to) 

" Entered and would seize, forsooth, the poet." 

Says the poet — " Then I stopped my painting." 

You and I would rather see that angel, 50 

Painted by the tenderness of Dante, 
Would we not ? — than read a fresh Inferno. 

You and I will never see that picture. 
While he mused on love and Beatrice, 
While he softened o'er his outlined angel. 
In they broke, those "people of importance : " 
We and Bice bear the loss forever. 

What of Rafael's sonnets, Dante's picture ? 

This : no artist lives and loves, that longs not 

Once, and only once, and for one only, 60 

(Ah, the prize !) to find his love a language 

Fit and fair and simple and sufficient — 

Using nature that 's an art to others. 

Not, this one time, art that 's turned his nature. 

Ay, of all the artists living, loving, 

None but would forego his proper dowry, — - 

Does he paint? he fain would write a poem, — 

Does he write ? he fain would paint a picture, 

Put to proof art alien to the artist's. 

Once, and only once, and for one only, 70 



2 20 One Word More 

So to be the man and leave the artist, 
Gain the man's joy, miss the artist's sorrow. 

Wherefore ? Heaven's gift takes earth's abatement ! 

He who smites the rock and spreads the water, 

Bidding drink and live a crowd beneath him, 

Even he, the minute makes immortal, 

Proves, perchance, but mortal in the minute, 

Desecrates, beside, the deed in doing. 

While he smites, how can he but remember, 

So he smote belike, in such a peril, 80 

When they stood and mocked — " Shall smiting help 

us?" 
When they drank ?ind sneered — "A stroke is easy ! " 
When they wiped their mouths and went their journey, 
Throwing him for thanks — " But drought was 

pleasant." 
Thus old memories mar the actual triumph ; 
Thus the doing savors of disrelish ; 
Thus achievement lacks a gracious somewhat ; 
O'er-importuned brows becloud the mandate, 
Carelessness or consciousness, — the gesture. 
For he bears an ancient wrong about him, 90 

Sees and knows again those phalanxed faces, 
Hears, yet one time more, the 'customed prelude — 
" How shouldst thou, of all men, smite, and save us? " 
Guesses what is like to prove the sequel — 
"Egypt's flesh-pots — nay, the drought was better." 

Oh, the crowd must have emphatic warrant ! 
Theirs, the Sinai-forehead's cloven brilliance, 
Right-arm's rod-sweep, tongue's imperial fiat. 
Never dares the man put off the prophet. 

Did he love one face from out the thousands, 100 

(Were she Jethro's daughter, white and wifely, 

Were she but the Ethiopian bondslave,) 

He would envy yon dumb patient camel, 

Keeping a reserve of scanty water 

Meant to save his own life in the desert ; 

Ready in the desert to deliver 

(Kneeling down to let his breast be opened) 

Hoard and life together for his mistress. 



One Word More 221 

I shall never, in the years remaining, 

Paint you pictures, no, nor carve you statues, no 

Make you music that should all-express me ; 

So it seems : I stand on my attainment. 

This of verse alone, one life allows me ; 

Verse and nothing else have I to give you. 

Other heights in other lives, God willing ; 

All the gifts from all the heights, your own, Love ! 

Yet a semblance of resource avails us — 

Shade so finely touched, love's sense must seize it. 

Take these lines, look lovingly and nearly. 

Lines I write the first time and the last time. 120 

He who works in fresco, steals a hair-brush, 

Curbs the liberal hand, subservient proudly, 

Cramps his spirit, crowds its all in little, 

Makes a strange art of an art familiar. 

Fills his lady's missal-marge with flowerets. 

He who blows through bronze, may breathe through 

silver. 
Fitly serenade a slumbrous princess. 
He who writes, may write for once as I do. 

Love, you saw me gather men and women. 

Live or dead or fashioned by my fancy, 130 

Enter each and all, and use their service. 

Speak from every mouth, — the speech, a poem. 

Hardly shall I tell my joys and sorrows, 

Hopes and fears, behef and disbelieving : 

I am mine and yours — the rest be all men's, 

Karshish, Cleon, Norbert, and the fifty, 

Let me speak this once in iriy true person, 

Not as Lippo, Roland, or Andrea, 

Though the fruit of speech be just this sentence : 

Pray you, look on these my men and women, 140 

Take and keep my fifty poems finished ; 

Where my heart lies, let my brain lie also ! 

Poor the speech ; be how I speak, for all things. 

Not but that you know me ! Lo, the moon's self ! 
Here in London, yonder late in Florence, 
Still we find her face, the thrice-transfigured. 



222 Ojie Word More 

Curving on a sky imbrued with color, 

Drifted over Fiesole by twilight, 

Came she, our new crescent of a hair's-breadth. 

Full she flared it, lamping Samminiato, 150 

Rounder 'twixt the cypresses and rounder, 

Perfect till the nightingales applauded. 

Now, a piece of her old self, impoverished, 

Hard to greet, she traverses the house-roofs, 

Hurries with unhandsome thrift of silver, 

Goes dispiritedly, glad to finish. 

What, there 's nothing in the moon noteworthy ? 

Nay : for if that moon could love a mortal, 

Use, to charm him (so to fit a fancy), 

All her magic ('t is the old sweet mythos), 160 

She would turn a new side to her mortal, 

Side unseen of herdsman, huntsman, steersman — 

Blank to Zoroaster on his terrace, 

Blind to Galileo on his turret, 

Dumb to Homer, dumb to Keats — him, even! 

Think, the wonder of the moonstruck mortal — 

When she turns round, comes again in heaven, 

Opens out anew for worse or better ! 

Proves she like some portent of an iceberg 

Swimming full upon the ship it founders, 1 70 

Hungry with huge teeth of splintered crystals ? 

Proves she as the paved work of a sapphire 

Seen by Moses when he climbed the mountain ? 

Moses, Aaron, Nadab and Abihu 

CHmbed and saw the very God, the Highest, 

Stand upon the paved work of a sapphire. 

Like the bodied heaven in his clearness 

Shone the stone, the sapphire of that paved work, 

When they ate and drank and saw God also ! 

What were seen? None knows, none ever shall 
know, 180 

Only this is sure — the sight were other, 
Not the moon's same side, born late in Florence, 
Dying now impoverished here in London. 
God be thanked, the meanest of his creatures 



One Word More 223 

Boasts two soul-sides, one to face the world with, 
One to show a woman when he loves her ! 

This I say of me, but think of you, Love ! 
This to you — yourself my moon of poets ! 
Ah, but that 's the world's side, there 's the wonder. 
Thus they see you, praise you, think they know 
you ! 190 

There, in turn I stand with them and praise you — 
Out of my own self, I dare to phrase it. 
But the best is when I glide from out them, 
Cross a step or two of dubious twihght, 
Come out on the other side, the novel, 
Silent silver lights and darks undreamed of, 
Where I hush and bless myself with silence. 

Oh, their Rafael of the dear Madonnas, 

Oh, their Dante of the dread Inferno, 

Wrote one song — and in my brain I sing it, 200 

Drew one angel — borne, see, on my bosom ! 



224 James Lees Wife 

JAMES LEE'S WIFE 

(1864) 

I 

JAMES LEE'S WIFE SPEAKS AT THE WINDOW 

Ah, Love, but a day 

And the world has changed ! 

The sun 's away, 

And the bird estranged ; 

The wind has dropped, 
And the sky 's deranged : 

Summer has stopped. 

Look in my eyes ! 

Wilt thou change too ? 
Should I fear surprise? 10 

Shall I find aught new 
In the old and dear, 

In the good and true, 
With the changing year ? 

Thou art a man, 

But I am thy love. 
For the lake, its swan ; 

For the dell, its dove ; 
And for thee — (oh, haste !) 

Me, to bend above, 20 

Me, to hold embraced. 

II 
BY THE FIRESIDE 

Is all our fire of shipwreck wood, 

Oak and pine ? 
Oh, for the ills half-understood, 

The dim dead woe 

Long ago 



James Lees Wife 225 

Befallen this bitter coast of France ! 
Well, poor sailors took their chance ; 
I take mine. 

A ruddy shaft our fire must shoot 30 

O'er the sea : 
Do sailors eye the casement — mute. 

Drenched and stark, 

From their bark — 
And envy, gnash their teeth for hate 
O' the warm, safe house and happy freight 

— Thee and me? 

God help you, sailors, at your need ! 

Spare the curse ! 
For some ships, safe in port indeed, 40 

Rot and rust, 

Run to dust, 
All through worms i' the wood, which crept, 
Gnawed our hearts out while we slept : 

That is worse. 

Who lived here before us two ? 

Old-world pairs. 
Did a woman ever — would I knew ! — 

Watch the man 

With whom began 5° 

Love's voyage full-sail, — (now gnash your teeth !) 
When planks start, open hell beneath 

Unawares ? 

Ill 

IN THE DOORWAY 

The swallow has set her six young on the rail. 

And looks seaward : 
The water 's in stripes like a snake, olive-pale 

To the leeward, — 
On the weather-side, black, spotted white with the 

wind. 
" Good fortune departs, and disaster 's behind," — 
Hark, the wind with its wants and its infinite wail ! 60 
IS 



2 26 James Lees Wife 

Our fig-tree, that leaned for the saltness, has furled 

Her five fingers, 
Each leaf like a hand opened wide to the world 

Where there lingers 
No glint of the gold, Summer sent for her sake : 
How the vines writhe in rows, each impaled on its 

stake ! 
My heart shrivels up and my spirit shrinks curled. 

Yet here are we two ; we have love, house enough, 

With the field there, 
This house of four rooms, that field red and rough, 70 

Though it yield there. 
For the rabbit that robs, scarce a blade or a bent ; 
If a magpie alight now, it seems an event ; 
And they both will be gone at November's rebuff. 

But why must cold spread ? but wherefore bring change 

To the spirit 
God meant should mate his with an infinite range, 

And inherit 
His power to put life in the darkness and cold ? 
Oh, live and love worthily, bear and be bold ! 80 

Whom Summer made friends of, let Winter estrange ! 



IV 
ALONG THE BEACH 

I will be quiet and talk with you. 

And reason why you are wrong. 
You wanted my love — is that much true ? 
And so I did love, so I do : 

What has come of it all along ? 

I took you — how could I otherwise ? 

For a world to me and more ; 
For all, love greatens and glorifies 
Till God 's aglow, to the loving eyes, 90 

In what was mere earth before. / 



yames Lees Wife 227 

Yes, earth — yes, mere ignoble earth ! 

Now do I mis-state, mistake ? 
Do I wrong your weakness and call it worth? 
Expect all harvest, dread no dearth, 

Seal my sense up for your sake ? 

Oh, Love, Love, no. Love ! not so indeed ! 

You were just weak earth, I knew : 
With much in you waste, with many a weed. 
And plenty of passions run to seed, 100 

But a little good grain too. 

And such as you were, I took you for mine : 

Did not you find me yours, 
To watch the olive and wait the vine. 
And wonder when rivers of oil and wine 

Would flow, as the Book assures ? 

Well, and if none of these good things came, 

What did the failure prove ? ■ 
The man was my whole world, all the same, 
With his flowers to praise or his weeds to blame, 1 10 

And, either or both, to love. 

Yet this turns now to a fault — there ! there ! 

That I do love, watch too long, 
And wait too well, and weary and wear ; 
And 't is all an old story, and my despair 

Fit subject for some new song : 

'' How the light, light love, he has wings to fly 

At suspicion of a bond : 
My wisdom has bidden your pleasure good-by, 
Which will turn up next in a laughing eye, 120 

And why should you look beyond ? " 

V 

ON THE CLIFF 

I leaned on the turf, 
I looked at a rock 
Left dry by the surf : 



228 James Lees Wife 

For the turf, to call it grass were to mock 
Dead to the roots, so deep was done 
The work of the summer sun. 



And the rock lay flat 

As an anvil's face ; 

No iron like that ! 130 

Baked dry \ of a weed, of a shell, no trace ; 

Sunshine outside, but ice at the core, 

Death's altar by the lone shore. 

On the turf, sprang gay 

With his films of blue, 

No cricket, I '11 say, 

But a warhorse, barded and chanfroned too, 

The gift of a quixote-mage to his knight, 

Real fairy, with wings all right. 

On the rock, they scorch 140 

Like a drop of fire 

From a brandished torch, 

Fall two red fans of a butterfly : 

No turf, no rock : in their ugly stead, 

See, wonderful blue and red ! 

Is it not so 

With the minds of men ? 

The level and low. 

The burnt and bare, in themselves : but then 

With such a blue and red grace, not theirs, — 150 

Love settling unawares I 



VI 

READING A BOOK, UNDER THE CLIFF 

" Still ailing. Wind ? Wilt be appeased or no ? 

Which needs the other's office, thou or I ? 
Dost want to be disburdened of a woe, 

And can, in truth, my voice untie 
Its links, and let it go ? 



. y antes Lees Wife 229 

"Art thou a dumb, wronged thing that would be 
righted ? 

Entrusting thus thy cause to me ? Forbear ! 
No tongue can mend such pleadings ; faith, requited 

With falsehood, — love, at last aware 160 

Of scorn, — hopes, early blighted, — 

" We have them ; but I know not any tone 

So fit as thine to falter forth a sorrow : 
Dost think men would go mad without a moan, 

If they knew any way to borrow 
A pathos like thy own ? 

" Which sigh wouldst mock, of all the sighs? The one 
So long escaping from lips starved and blue, 

That lasts while on her pallet-bed the nun 

Stretches her length ; her foot comes through 170 

The straw she shivers on ; 

" You had not thought she was so tall : and spent, 
Her shrunk lids open, her lean fingers shut 

Close, close, their sharp and livid nails indent 
The clammy palm ; then all is mute : 

That way, the spirit went. 

" Or wouldst thou rather that I understand 
Thy will to help me? — Hke the dog I found 

Once, pacing sad this solitary strand, 

Who would not take my food, poor liound, iSo 

But whined and licked my hand." 



All this and more, comes from some young man's pride 
Of power to see, — in failure and mistake. 

Relinquishment, disgrace, on every side, — 
Merely examples for his sake. 

Helps to his path untried : 

Instances he must — simply recognize ? 

Oh, more than so ! — must, with a learner's zeal, 
Make doubly prominent, twice emphasize 

By added touches that reveal 190 

The god in babe's disguise. 



230 y antes Lees Wife. 

Oh, he knows what defeat means, and the rest ! 

Himself the undefeated that shall be : 
Failure, disgrace, he flings them you to test, — 

His triumph, in eternity 
Too plainly manifest ! 

Whence, judge if he learn forthwith what the wind 
Means in its moaning — by the happy, prompt, 

Instinctive way of youth, I mean ; for kind, 

Calm years, exacting their accorapt 200 

Of pain, mature the mind : 

And some midsummer morning, at the lull 
Just about daybreak, as he looks across 

A sparkhng foreign country, wonderful 
To the sea's edge for gloom and gloss, 

Next minute must annul, — 

Then, when the wind begins among the vines, 
So low, so low, what shall it say but this ? 

" Here is the change beginning, here the lines 

Circumscribe beauty, set to bliss 2 1 o 

The limit time assigns." 

Nothing can be as it has been before ; 

Better, so call it, only not the same. 
To draw one beauty into our hearts' core, 

And keep it changeless ! such our claim ; 
So answered, — Nevermore ! 

Simple? Why this is the old woe o' the world ; 

Tune, to whose rise and fall we live and die, 
Rise with it, then ! Rejoice that man is hurled 

From change to change unceasingly, 220 

His soul's wings never furled ! 

That 's a new question ; still replies the fact, 
Nothing endures : the wind moans, saying so ; 

We moan in acquiescence : there 's life's pact. 
Perhaps probation — do / know ? 

God does : endure his act ! 



yames Lees Wife 231 

Only, for man, how bitter not to grave 

On his soul's hands' palms one fair good wise thing 
Just as he grasped it ! For himself, death's wave ; 

While time first washes — ah, the sting ! — 230 

O'er all he 'd sink to save. 



VII 

AMONG THE ROCKS 

Oh, good gigantic smile o' the brown old earth. 
This autumn morning ! How he sets his bones 

To bask i' the sun, and thrusts out knees and feet 

For the ripple to run over in its mirth ; 

Listening the while, where on the heap of stones 

The white breast of the sea-lark twitters sweet. 

That is the doctrine, simple, ancient, true ; 

Such is life's trial, as old earth smiles and knows. 
If you loved only what were worth your love, 240 

Love were clear gain, and wholly well for you : 

Make the low nature better by your throes ! 
Give earth yourself, go up for gain above ! 



VIII 
BESIDE THE DRAWING-BOARD 

" As Hke as a Hand to another Hand ! " 

Whoever said that foolish thing 
Could not have studied to understand 

The councils of God in fashioning, 
Out of the infinite love of his heart, 
This Hand, whose beauty I praise, apart 
From the world of wonder left to praise 250 
If I tried to learn the other ways 
Of love in its skill, or love in its power. 

" As like as a Hand to another Hand : " 

Who said that, never took his stand, 
Found and followed, like me, an hour. 
The beauty in this, — how free, how fine 



232 y antes Lees Wife 

To fear, almost, — of the limit-line ! 

As I looked at this, and learned and drevv^ 
Drew and learned, and looked again, 

While fast the happy minutes flew, 260 

Its beauty mounted into my brain, 
And a fancy seized me ; I was fain 

To efface my work, begin anew. 

Kiss what before I only drew ; 

Ay, laying the red chalk 'twixt my lips, 
With soul to help if the mere lips failed, 
I kissed all right where the drawing ailed, 

Kissed fast the grace that somehow slips 

Still from one's soulless finger-tips. 

'Tis a clay cast, the perfect thing, 270 

From Hand live once, dead long ago : 
Princess-like it wears the ring 

To fancy's eye, by which we know 
That here at length a master found 

His match, a proud lone soul its mate. 
As soaring genius sank to ground, 

And pencil could not emulate 
The beauty in this, — how free, how fine 
To fear almost ! — of the limit-line. 
Long ago the god, like me 280 

The worm, learned, each in our degree : 
Looked and loved, learned and drew, 

Drew and learned and loved again, 
While fast the happy minutes flew, 

Till beauty mounted into his brain. 
And on the finger which outvied 

His art he placed the ring that 's there, 
Still by fancy's eye descried, 

In token of a marriage rare : 
For him on earth, his art's despair, 290 

For him in heaven, his soul's fit bride. 

Little girl with the poor coarse hand 
I turned from to a cold clay cast — 

I have my lesson, understand 

The worth of flesh and blood at last ! 



James Lees Wife 233 

Nothing but beauty in a Hand? 

Because he could not change the hue, 
Mend the Hnes and make them true 

To this, which met his soul's demand, — 

Would Da Vinci turn from you ? 300 

I hear him laugh my woes to scorn — 

" The fool forsooth is all forlorn 

Because the beauty, she thinks best, 

Lived long ago or was never born, — 

Because no beauty bears the test 

In this rough peasant Hand ! Confessed ! 

* Art is null and study void ! ' 

So sayest thou ? So said not I, 

Who threw the faulty pencil by, 

And years instead of hours employed, 310 

Learning the veritable use 

Of flesh and bone and nerve beneath 

Lines and hue of the outer sheath, 

If haply I might reproduce 

One motive of the powers profuse, 

Flesh and bone and nerve, that make 

The poorest, coarsest human hand 

An object worthy to be scanned 

A whole life long for their sole sake. 

Shall earth and the cramped moment-space 320 

Yield the heavenly crowning grace ? 

Now the parts and then the whole ! 

Who art thou, with stinted soul 

And stunted body, thus to cry, 

' I love, — shall that be life's strait dole ! 

I must live beloved or die ! ' 

This peasant hand that spins the wool 

And bakes the bread, why hves it on, 

Poor and coarse, with beauty gone, — 

What use survives the beauty?" Fool ! 330 

Go, little girl with the poor coarse hand ! 
I have my lesson, shall understand. 



2 34 James Lees Wife 



IX 

ON DECK 

There is nothing to remember in me, 

Nothing I ever said with a grace, 
Nothing I did that you care to see, 

Nothing I was that deserves a place 
In your mind, now I leave you, set you free. 

Conceded ! In turn, concede to me, 
Such things have been as a mutual flame. 

Your soul 's locked fast ; but, love for a key, 340 

You might let it loose, till I grew the same 

In your eyes, as in mine you stand : strange plea ! 

For then, then, what would it matter to me 

That I was the harsh, ill-favored one ? 
We both should be like as pea and pea ; 

It was ever so since the world begun : 
So, let me proceed with my reverie. 

How strange it were if you had all me. 
As I have all you in my heart and brain, 

You, whose least word brought gloom or glee, 350 
Who never lifted the hand in vain — 

Will hold mine yet, from over the sea ! 

Strange, if a face, when you thought of me, 

Rose like your own face present now, 
With eyes as dear in their due degree. 

Much such a mouth, and as bright a brow, 
Till you saw yourself, while you cried " ' T is She ! " 

Well, you may, you must, set down to me 

Love that was life, life that was love ; 
A tenure of breath at your lips' decree, 360 

A passion to stand as your thoughts approve, 
A rapture to fall where your foot might be. 



Dts A liter Vistwt 235 

But did one touch of such love for me 

Come in a word or a look of yours, 
Whose words and looks will, circling, flee 

Round me and round while life endures, — - 
Could I fancy " As I feel, thus feels He ; " 

Why, fade you might to a thing like me, 

And your hair grow these coarse hanks of hair, 

Your skin, this bark of a gnarled tree, — 370 

You might turn myself! — - should I know or care, 

When I should be dead of joy, James Lee ? 



DlS ALITER VISUM; 

OR, LE BYRON DE NOS JOURS 
(1864) 

Stop, let me have the truth of that ! 

Is that all true ? I say, the day 
Ten years ago when both of us 

Met on a morning, friends — as thus 
We meet this evening, friends or what? — 

Did you — because I took your arm 
And sillily smiled, " A mass of brass 

That sea looks, blazing underneath ! " 
While up the cliff-road edged with heath. 

We took the turns nor came to harm — 10 

Did you consider, " Now makes twice 
That I have seen her, walked and talked 

With this poor pretty thoughtful thing. 
Whose worth I weigh : she tries to sing ; 

Draws, hopes in time the eye grows nice ; 

" Reads verse and thinks she understands \ 

Loves all, at any rate, that 's great. 
Good, beautiful ; but much as we 

Down at the bath-house love the sea, 
Who breathe its salt and bruise its sands : 20 



236 Dis A liter Visum 

" While ... do but follow the fishing-gull 
That flaps and floats from wave to cave ! 

There 's the sea-lover, fair my friend ! 

What then ? Be patient, mark and mend 1 

Had you the making of your skull ? " 

And did you, when we faced the church 

With spire and sad slate roof, aloof 
From human fellowship so far, 

Where a few graveyard crosses are, 
And garlands for the swallows' perch, — 30 

Did you determine, as we stepped 

O'er the lone stone fence, " Let me get 

Her for myself, and what 's the earth 
With all its art, verse, music, worth — 

Compared with love, found, gained, and kept? 

'' Schumann 's our music-maker now ; 

Has his march-movement youth and mouth ? 
Ingres 's the modern man that paints ; 

Which will lean on me, of his saints ? 
Heine for songs; for kisses, how?" 40 

And did you, when we entered, reached 

The votive frigate, soft aloft 
Riding on air this hundred years, 

Safe-smiling at old hopes and fears, — 
Did you draw profit while she preached ? 

Resolving, " Fools we wise men grow ! 

Yes, I could easily blurt out curt 
Some question that might find reply 

As prompt in her stopped lips, dropped eye. 
And rush of red to cheek and brow : 50 

" Thus were a match made, sure and fast, 
'Mid the blue weed-flowers round the mound 

Where, issuing, we shall stand and stay 
For one more look at baths and bay, 

Sands, sea-gulls, and the old church last — 



Dls A liter Visum 237 

" A match 'twixt me, bent, wigged and lamed, 

Famous, however, for verse and worse, 
Sure of the Fortieth spare Arm-chair 

When gout and glory seat me there. 
So, one whose love-freaks pass unblamed, — 60 

" And this young beauty, round and sound 

As a mountain-apple, youth and truth 
With loves and doves, at all events 

With money in the Three per Cents •; 
Whose choice of me would seem profound : — 

" She might take me as I take her. 

Perfect the hour would pass, alas ! 
CHmb high, love high, what matter? Still, 

Feet, feelings, must descend the hill : 
An hour's perfection can't recur. 70 

" Then follows Paris, and full time 

For both to reason : ' Thus with us ! ' 
She '11 sigh, ' Thus girls give body and soul 

At first word, think they gain ihe goal. 
When 't is the starting-place they climb ! 

" ' My friend makes verse and gets renown ; 

Have they all fifty years, his peers? 
He knows the world, firm, quiet and gay ; 

Boys will become as much one day : 
They're fools; he cheats, with beard less brown. 80 

" ' For boys say, Love me or I die ! 

He did not say. The truth is, youth 
I want, who am old and hiow too much ; 

1 'd catch youth : lend me sight and touch ! 
Drop heart's blood where lifes wheels grate dry ! ' 

" While I should make rejoinder" — (then 
It was, no doubt, you ceased that least 

Light pressure of my arm in yours) — 
" ' I can conceive of cheaper cures 

For a yawning-fit o'er books and men. 90 



238 Dis A liter Visum 

" ' What? All I am, was, and might be, 

All books taught, art brought, life's whole strife, 

Painful results since precious, just 
Were fitly exchanged, in wise disgust, 

For two cheeks freshened by youth and sea? 

" * All for a nosegay ! — what came first ; 

With fields on flower, untried each side ; 
I rally, need my books and men, 

And find a nosegay : ' drop it, then. 
No match yet made for best or worst ! " 

That ended me. You judged the porch 
We left by, Norman ; took our look 

At sea and sky ; wondered so few 
Find out the place for air and view ; 

Remarked the sun began to scorch ; 

Descended, soon regained the baths. 

And then, good-by ! Years ten since then : 

Ten years ! We meet : you tell me, now. 
By a window-seat for that cliff-brow, 

On carpet- stripes for those sand-paths. 

Now I may speak : you fool, for all 

Your lore ! Who made things plain in vain ? 

What was the sea for ? What, the gray 
Sad church, that solitary day, 

Crosses and graves and swallows' call ? 

Was there naught better than to enjoy? 

No feat which, done, would make time break 
And let us pent-up creatures through 

Into eternity, our due? 
No forcing earth teach heaven's employ ? 

No wise beginning, here and now. 

What cannot grow complete (earth's feat) 

And heaven must finish, there and then ? 
No tasting earth's true food for men, 

Its sweet in sad, its sad in sweet? 



Dis A liter Visum 239 



No grasping at love, gaining a share 

O' the sole spark from God's life at strife 

With death, so, sure of range above 
The limits here ? For us and love, 

Failure ; but, when God fails, despair. 130 

This you call wisdom ? Thus you add 

Good unto good again, in vain ? 
You loved, with body worn and weak ; 

I loved, with faculties to seek : 
Were both loves worthless since ill-clad? 

Let the mere star-fish in his vault 

Crawl in a wash of weed, indeed, 
Rose-jacynth to the finger-tips : 

He, whole in body and soul, outstrips 
Man, found with either in default. 140 

But what 's whole can increase no more. 
Is dwarfed and dies, since here 's its sphere. 

The devil laughed at you in his sleeve ! 
You knew not? That I well believe ; 

Or you had saved two souls : nay, four. 

For Stephanie sprained last night her wrist, 
Ankle, or something. "Pooh," cry you? 

At any rate she danced, all say. 
Vilely ; her vogue has had its day. 

Here comes ray husband from his whist. * 150 



240 Abt Vogler 



ABT VOGLER 

(after he has been extemporizing upon the musical 
instrument of his invention) 

(1864) 

Would that the structure brave, the manifold music 
I build, 
Bidding my organ obey, calling its keys to their 
work, 
Claiming each slave of the sound, at a touch, as when 
Solomon willed 
Armies of angels that soar, legions of demons that 
lurk, 
Man, brute, reptile, fly, — alien of end and of aim, 
Adverse each from the other, heaven-high hell-deep 
removed, — 
Should rush into sight at once as he named the 
ineffable Name, 
And pile him a palace straight, to pleasure the 
princess he loved! 

Would it might tarry like his, the beautiful building of 
mine, 
This which my keys in a crowd pressed and impor- 
tuned to raise ! 10 
Ah, one and all, how they helped, would dispart now 
and now combine. 
Zealous to hasten the work, heighten their master 
his praise ! 
And one would bury his brow with a blind plunge 
down to hell. 
Burrow awhile and build, broad on the root sof 
things, 
Then up again swim into sight, having based me my 
palace well. 
Founded it, fearless of flame, flat on the nether 
springs. 



Abt Vogler 241 

And another would mount and march, hke the excel- 
lent minion he was, 
Ay, another and yet another, one crowd but with 
many a crest, 
Raising my rampired walls of gold as transparent as 
glass, 
Eager to do and die, yield each his place to the 
rest : 20 

For higher still and higher (as a runner tips with fire, ■ 

When a great illumination surprises a festal night — 
Outlining round and round Rome's dome from space 
to spire) 
Up, the pinnacled glory reached, and the pride of 
my soul was in sight. 

In sight ? Not half ! for it seemed, it was certain, to 
match man's birth, 
Nature in turn conceived, obeying an impulse as 

I; 

And the emulous heaven yearned down, made effort 
to reach the earth. 
As the earth had done her best, in my passion, to 
scale the sky : 
Novel splendors burst forth, grew familiar and dwelt 
with mine, 
Not a point nor peak but found and fixed its wan- 
dering star ; 3° 
Meteor-moons, balls of blaze : and they did not pale 
nor pine. 
For earth had attained to heaven, there was no 
more near nor far. 

Nay more ; for there wanted not who walked in the 
glare and glow, 
Presences plain in the place ; or, fresh from the 
Protoplast, 
Furnished for ages to come, when a kindlier wind 
should blow. 
Lured now to begin and live, in a house to their 
liking at last ; 
Or else the wonderful Dead who have passed through 
the body and gone, 
16 



242 Abi Vogler 

But were back once more to breathe in an old 

world worth their new : 
What never had been, was now; what was, as it shall 

be anon : 
And what is, — shall I say, matched both ? for I 

was made perfect too. 40 

All through my keys that gave their sounds to a wish 
of my soul. 
All through my soul that praised as its wish flowed 
visibly forth, 
All through music and me ! For think, had I painted 
the whole, 
Why, there it had stood, to see, nor the process so 
wonder-worth : 
Had I written the same, made verse — still, effect 
proceeds from cause, 
Ye know why the forms are fair, ye hear how the 
tale is told ; 
It is all triumphant art, but art in obedience to laws. 
Painter and poet are proud in the artist-list ca- 
rolled : — 

But here is the finger of God, a flash of the will that 
can, 
Existent behind all laws, that made them and, lo, 
they are ! 50 

And I know not if, save in this, such gift be allowed to 
man, 
That out of three sounds he frame, not a fourth 
sound, but a star. 
Consider it well : each tone of our scale in itself is 
naught : 
It is everywhere in the world — loud, soft, and all 
is said : 
Give it to me to use ! 1 mix it with two in my 
thought : 
And there ! Ye have heard and seen : consider 
and bow the head ! 

Well, it is gone at last, the palace of music I reared ; 
Gone ! and the good tears start, the praises that 
come too slow ; 



Abt Vogler 243 

For one is assured at first, one scarce can say that he 
feared, 
That he even gave it a thought, the gone thing was 
to go, 60 

Never to be again ! But many more of the kind 
As good, nay, better perchance : is this your com- 
fort to me ? 
To me, who must be saved because I cling with my 
mind 
To the same, same self, same love, same God : ay, 
what was, shall be. 

Therefore to whom turn I but to thee, the ineffable 
Name ? 
Builder and maker, thou, of houses not made with 
hands ! 
What, have fear of change from thee who art ever the 
same ? 
Doubt that thy power can fill the heart that thy 
power expands? 
There shall never be one lost good ! What was, shall 
live as before ; 
The evil is null, is naught, is silence implying 
sound ; 7° 

What was good shall be good, with, for evil, so much 
good more ; 
On the earth the broken arcs; in the heaven a 
perfect round. 

All we have willed or hoped or dreamed of good 
shall exist ; 
Not its semblance, but itself; no beauty, nor good, 
nor power 
Whose voice has gone forth, but each survives for the 
melodist 
When eternity affirms the conception of an hour. 
The high that proved too high, the heroic for earth 
too hard, 
The passion that left the ground to lose itself in the 
sky, 

Are music sent up to God by the lover and the bard ; 
/ Enough that he heard it once : we shall hear it by 
and by. 80 



244 Rabbi Ben Ezra 

And what is our failure here but a triumph's evidence 
For the fuhiess of the days ? Have we withered or 
agonized? 
Why else was the pause prolonged but that singing 
might issue thence ? 
Why rushed the discords in, but that harmony 
should be prized ? 
Sorrow is hard to bear, and doubt is slow to clear, 
Each sufferer says his say, his scheme of the weal 
and woe : 
But God has a few of us whom he whispers in the 
ear ; 
The rest may reason and welcome : 't is we musi- 
cians know. 

Well, it is earth with me ; silence resumes her reign : 
I will be patient and proud, and soberly acqui- 
esce. 90 
Give me the keys. I feel for the common chord 
again, 
Sliding by semitones till I sink to the minor, — yes, 
And I blunt it into a ninth, and I stand on alien 
ground, 
Surveying awhile the heights I rolled from into the 
deep ; 
Which, hark, I have dared and done, for my resting- 
place is found, 
The C Major of this life : so, now I will try to 
sleep. 



RABBI BEN EZRA 

(1864) 

Grow old along with me ! 
The best is yet to be, 

The last of life, for which the first was made : 
Our times are in his hand 
Who saith, " A whole I planned, 
Youth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor be 
afraid ! " 



Rabbi Ben Ezra 245 

Not that, amassing flowers, 
Youth sighed, " Wliich rose make ours, 
Which hly leave and then as best recall ? " 
Not that, admiring stars, ^° 

It yearned, " Nor Jove, nor Mars ; 
Mine be some figured flame which blends, transcends 
them all ! " 

Not for such hopes and fears, 

Annulling youth's brief years, 

Do I remonstrate : folly wide the mark! 

Rather I prize the doubt 

Low kinds exist without, 

Finished and finite clods, untroubled by a spark. 

Poor vaunt of Hfe indeed, 

Were man but formed to feed 20 

On joy, to solely seek and find and feast : 
Such feasting ended, then 
As sure an end to men ; 

Irks care the crop-full bird? Frets doubt the maw- 
crammed beast? 

Rejoice we are allied 
To that which doth provide 
And not partake, efl"ect and not receive ! 
A spark disturbs our clod ; 
Nearer we hold of God 

Who gives, than of his tribes that take, I must 
believe. 3° 

Then, welcome each rebuff 
That turns earth's smoothness rough. 
Each sting that bids nor sit nor stand, but go ! 
Be our joys three-parts pain ! 
Strive, and hold cheap the strain ; 
Learn, nor account the pang ; dare, never grudge the 
throe ! 

For thence, — a paradox 

Which comforts while it mocks, — 

Shall life succeed in that it seems to fail : 



246 Rabbi Ben Ezra 

What I aspired to be, 40 

And was not, comforts me : 

A brute I might have been, but would not sink i' the 
scale. 

What is he but a brute 

Whose flesh has soul to suit, 

Whose spirit works lest arms and legs want play ? 

To man, propose this test — 

Thy body at its best, 

How far can that project thy soul on its lone way? 

Yet gifts should prove their use : 

I own the Past profuse 50 

Of power each side, perfection every turn : 
Eyes, ears took in their dole, 
Brain treasured up the whole ; 

Should not the heart beat once, " How good to live 
and learn " ? 

Not once beat, " Praise be thine ! 
I see the whole design, 

I, who saw power, see now Love perfect too: 
Perfect I call thy plan : 
Thanks that I was a man ! 

Maker, remake, complete, — I trust what thou shalt 
do ! " 60 

For pleasant is this flesh ; 

Our soul, in its rose-mesh 

Pulled ever to the earth, still yearns for rest : 

Would we some prize might hold 

To match those manifold 

Possessions of the brute, — gain most, as we did best ! 

Let us not always say, 
" Spite of this flesh to-day 

I strove, made head, gained ground upon the whole ! " 
As the bird wings and sings, 70 

Let us cry, " All good things 

Are ours, nor soul helps flesh more, now, than flesh 
helps soul ! " 



Rabbi Ben Ezra 247 

Therefore I summon age 
To grant youth's heritage, 
Life's struggle having so far reached its term : 
Thence shall I pass, approved 
A man, for aye removed 

From the developed brute ; a God, though in the 
germ. 

And I shall thereupon 

Take rest, ere I be gone 80 

Once more on my adventure brave and new : 

Fearless and unperplexed. 

When I wage battle next, 

What weapons to select, what armor to indue. 

Youth ended, I shall try 

My gain or loss thereby ; 

Leave the fire ashes, what survives is gold : 

And I shall weigh the same, 

Give life its praise or blame : 

Young, all lay in dispute ; I shall know, being old. 90 

For note, when evening shuts, 

A certain moment cuts 

The deed off, calls the glory from the gray : 

A whisper from the west 

Shoots — " Add this to the rest, 

Take it and try its worth : here dies another day." 

So, still within this life, 

Though lifted o'er its strife, 

Let me discern, compare, pronounce at last, 

" This rage was right i' the main, 1 00 

That acquiescence vain: 

The Future I may face, now I have proved the Past." 

For more is not reserved 

To man, with soul just nerved 

To act to-morrow what he learns to-day : 

Here, work enough to watch 

The Master work, and catch 

Hints of the proper craft, tricks of the tool's true play. 



248 Rabbi Ben Ezra 

As it was better youth 

Should strive, through acts uncouth, no 

Toward making, than repose on aught found made, 
So, better, age, exempt 
From strife, should know, than tempt 
Further. Thou waitedst age: wait death, nor be 
afraid ! 

Enough now, if the Right 
And Good and Infinite 

Be named here, as thou callest thy hand thine own, 
With knowledge absolute, 
Subject to no dispute 

From fools that crowded youth, nor let thee feel 
alone. 120 

Be there, for once and all, 
Severed great minds from small, 
Announced -to each his station in the Past ! 
Was I, the world arraigned. 
Were they, my soul disdained. 

Right? Let age speak the truth and give us peace at 
last! 

Now, who shall arbitrate? 
Ten men love what I hate. 
Shun what I follow, slight what I receive ; 
Ten, who in ears and eyes 130 

Match me : we all surmise. 

They this thing, and I that: whom shall my soul 
believe ? 

Not on the vulgar mass 

Called "work," must sentence pass, 

Things done, that took the eye and had the price ; 

O'er which, from level stand. 

The low world laid its hand. 

Found straightway to its mind, could value in a trice : 

But all the world's coarse thumb 

And finger failed to plumb, 140 

So passed in making up the main account ; 



Rabbi Ben Ezra 249 

All instincts immature, 
All purposes unsure, 

That weighed not as his work, yet swelled the man!s 
amount : 

Thoughts hardly to be packed 
Into a narrow act, 

Fancies that broke through language and escaped ; 
All I could never be, 
All men ignored in me, 

This I was worth to God, whose wheel the pitcher 
shaped, 150 

Ay, note that Potter's wheel. 
That metaphor ! and feel 

Why time spins fast, why passive lies our clay, — 
Thou, to whom fools propound, 
When the wine makes its round, 

" Since life fleets, all is change ; the Past gone, seize 
to-day ! " 

Fool ! All that is, at all, 
Lasts ever, past recall ; 

Earth changes, but thy soul and God stand sure : 
What entered into thee, 160 

That was, is, and shall be : 

Time's wheel runs back or stops : Potter and clay 
endure. 

He fixed thee 'mid this dance 

Of plastic circumstance, 

This Present, thou, forsooth, would fain arrest : 

Machinery just meant 

To give thy soul its bent. 

Try thee and turn thee forth, sufficiently impressed. 

What though the earlier grooves, 

Which ran the laughing loves 170 

Around thy base, no longer pause and press ? 

What though, about thy rim, 

Skull-things in order grim 

Grow out, in graver mood, obey the sterner stress? 



250 Rabbi Ben Ezra 

Look not thou down, but up ! 
To uses of a cup, 

The festal board, lamp's flash and trumpet's peal, 
The new wine's foaming flow, 
The Master's lips aglow ! 

Thou, heaven's consummate cup, what needst thou 
with earth's wheel ? 180 

But I need, now as then. 

Thee, God, who mouldest men ; 

And since, not even while the whirl was worst, 

Did I — to the wheel of life 

With shapes and colors rife, 

Bound dizzily — mistake my end, to slake thy thirst: 

So, take and use thy work : 

Amend what flaws may lurk, 

What strain o' the stuff, what warpings past the 

aim ! 
My times be in thy hand ! 190 

Perfect the cup as planned ! 
Let age approve of youth, and death complete the 

same ! 



A Death in the Desert 251 

A DEATH IN THE DESERT 

(1864) 

[Supposed of Pamphylax the Antiochene : 

It is a parchment, of my rolls the fifth, 

Hath three skins glued together, is all Greek, 

And goeth from Epsilon down to Mu : 

Lies second in the surnamed Chosen Chest, 

Stained and conserved with juice of terebinth. 

Covered with cloth of hair, and lettered X i, 

From Xanthus, my wife's uncle, now at peace : 

Mil and Epsilon stand for my own name. 

I may not write it, but I make a cross 10 

To show I wait His coming, with the rest, 

And leave off here : beginneth Pamphylax.] 

I said, " If one should wet his lips with wine, 

And slip the broadest plantain-leaf we find, 

Or else the lappet of a linen robe, 

Into the water-vessel, lay it right, 

And cool his forehead just above the eyes, 

The while a brother, kneeling either side. 

Should chafe each hand and try to make it warm, — 

He is not so far gone but he might speak." 20 

This did not happen in the outer cave, 
Nor in the secret chamber of the rock. 
Where, sixty days since the decree was out. 
We had him, bedded on a camel-skin, 
And waited for his dying all the while ; 
But in the midmost grotto : since noon's hght 
Reached there a little, and we would not lose 
The last of what might happen on his face. 

I at the head, and Xanthus at the feet, 

With Valens and the Boy, had lifted him 30 

And brought him from the chamber in the depths, 

And laid him in the light where we might see : 

For certain smiles began about his mouth. 

And his lids moved, presageful of the end. 



252 A Death in the Desert 

Beyond, and halfway up the mouth o' the cave, 

The Bactrian convert, having his desire, 

Kept watch, and made pretence to graze a goat 

That gave us milk, on rags of various herb, 

Plantain and quitch, the rocks' shade keeps alive : 

So that if any thief or soldier passed, 40 

(Because the persecution was aware,) 

Yielding the goat up promptly with his life, 

Such man might pass on, joyful at a prize, 

Nor care to pry into the cool o' the cave. 

Outside was all noon and the burning blue. 

" Here is wine," answered Xanthus, — dropped a 

drop ; 
I stooped and placed the lap of cloth aright. 
Then chafed his right hand, and the Boy his left : 
But Valens had bethought him, and produced 
And broke a ball of nard, and made perfume. 50 

Only, he did — not so much wake, as — turn 
And smile a little, as a sleeper does 
If any dear one call him, touch his face — 
And smiles and loves, but will not be disturbed. 

Then Xanthus said a prayer, but still he slept : 

It is the Xanthus that escaped to Rome, 

Was burned, and could not write the chronicle. 

Then the Boy sprang up from his knees, and ran, 

Stung by the splendor of a sudden thought, 

And fetched the seventh plate of graven lead 60 

Out of the secret chamber, found a place, 

Pressing with finger on the deeper dints, 

And spoke, as 't were his mouth proclaiming first, 

" I am the Resurrection and the Life." 

Whereat he opened his eyes wide at once, 

And sat up of himself, and looked at us ; 

And thenceforth nobody pronounced a word : 

Only, outside, the Bactrian cried his cry 

Like the lone desert-bird that wears the ruff, 

As signal we were safe, from time to time. 70 



A Death in the Desert 253 

First he said, " If a friend declared to me, 

This my son Valens, this my other son, 

Were James and Peter, — nay, declared as well 

This lad was very John, — I could believe ! 

— Could, for a moment, doubtlessly believe : 

So is myself withdrawn into my depths, 

The soul retreated from the perished brain 

Whence it was wont to feel and use the world 

Through these dull members, done with long ago. 

Yet I myself remain ; I feel myself : 80 

And there is nothing lost. Let be, awhile ! " 

[This is the doctrine he was wont to teach. 

How divers persons witness in each man. 

Three souls which make up one soul : fiirst, to wit, 

A soul of each and all the bodily parts, 

Seated therein, which works, and is what Does, 

And has the use of earth, and ends the man 

Downward : but, tending upward for advice, 

Grows into, and again is grown into 

By the next soul, which, seated in the brain, 90 

Useth the first with its collected use, 

And feeleth, thinketh, willeth, — is what Knows : 

Which, duly tending upward in its turn. 

Grows into, and again is grown into 

By the last soul, that uses both the first, 

Subsisting whether they assist or no. 

And, constituting man's self, is what Is — 

And leans upon the former, makes it play, 

As that played off the first : and, tending up, 

Holds, is upheld by, God, and ends the man _ 100 

Upward in that dread point of intercourse, 

Nor needs a place, for it returns to Him. 

What Does, what Knows, what Is: three souls, one 

man, 
I give the glossa as Theotypas.] 

And then, " A stick, once fire from end to end ; 
Now, ashes save the tip that holds a spark ! 
Yet, blow the spark, it runs back, spreads itself 
A Httle where the fire was : thus I urge 



2 54 ^ Death in the Desert 

The soul that served me, till it task once more 

What ashes of my brain have kept their shape, no 

And these make effort on the last o' the flesh, 

Trying to taste again the truth of things'' — 

(He smiled) — " their very superficial truth ; 

As that ye are my sons, that it is long 

Since James and Peter had release by death, 

And I am only he, your brother John, 

Who saw and heard, and could remember all. 

Remember all ! It is not much to say. 

What if the truth broke on me from above 

As once and ofttimes? Such might hap again : 120 

Doubtlessly He might stand in presence here, 

With head wool-white, eyes flame, and feet like brass, 

The sword and the seven stars, as I have seen — 

I who now shudder only and surmise, 

* How did your brother bear that sight and live ? ' 

" If I live yet, it is for good, more love 
Through me to men : be naught but ashes here 
That keep awhile my semblance who was John, — 
Still, when they scatter, there is left on earth 
No one alive who knew (consider this !) 130 

— Saw with his eyes and handled with his hands 
That which was from the first, the Word of Life. 
How will it be when none more saith ' I saw ' ? 

" Such ever was love's way : to rise, it stoops- 

Since I, whom Christ's mouth taught, was bidden 

teach, 
I went, for many years, about the world, 
Saying ' It was so j so I heard and saw,' 
Speaking as the case asked : and men believed. 
Afterward came the message to myself 
In Patmos isle ; I was not bidden teach, 140 

But simply listen, take a book and write, 
Nor set down other than the given word, 
With nothing left to my arbitrament 
To choose or change : I wrote, and men believed. 
Then, for my time grew brief, no message more, 
No call to write again, I found a way. 
And, reasoning from my knowledge, merely taught 



A Death in the Desert 255 

Men should, for love's sake, in love's strength believe ; 

Or I would pen a letter to a friend 

And urge the same as friend, nor less nor more : 150 

Friends said I reasoned rightly, and believed. 

But at the last, why, I seemed left alive 

Like a sea-jelly weak on Patmos strand, 

To tell dry sea-beach gazers how I fared 

When there was mid sea, and the mighty things ; 

Left to repeat, ' I saw, I heard, I knew,' 

And go all over the old ground again, 

With Antichrist already in the world, 

And many Antichrists, who answered prompt, 

' Am I not Jasper as thyself art John? 160 

Nay, young, whereas through age thou mayest forget : 

Wherefore, explain, or how shall we believe ? ' 

I never thought to call down fire on such, 

Or, as in wonderful and early days, 

Pick up the scorpion, tread the serpent dumb ; 

But patient stated much of the Lord's life 

Forgotten or misdelivered, and let it work : 

Since much that at the first, in deed and word, 

Lay simply and sufficiently exposed, 

Had grown (or else my soul was grown to match, 170 

Fed through such years, familiar with such light, 

Guarded and guided still to see and speak) 

Of new significance and fresh result ; 

What first were guessed as points, I now knew stars, 

And named them in the Gospel I have writ. 

For men said, ' It is getting long ago : 

Where is the promise of his coming ? ' — asked 

These young ones in their strength, as loth to wait. 

Of me who, when their sires were born, was old. 

I, for I loved them, answered, joyfully, iSo 

Since I was there, and helpful in my age ; 

And, in the main, I think such men believed. 

Finally, thus endeavoring, I fell sick. 

Ye brought me here, and I supposed the end. 

And went to sleep with one thought that, at least. 

Though the whole earth should He in wickedness, 

We had the truth, might leave the rest to God. 

Yet now I wake in such decrepitude 

As I had slidden down and fallen afar, 



256 A Death in the Desert 

Past even the presence of ray former self, 190 

Grasping the while for stay at facts which snap, 
Till I am found away from my own world, 
Feeling for foothold through a blank profound, 
Along with unborn people in strange lands, 
Who say — I hear said or conceive they say — 
' Was John at all, and did he say he saw ? 
Assure us, ere we ask what he might see ! ' 

' ' And how shall I assure them ? Can they share 

— They, who have flesh, a veil of youth and strength 
About each spirit, that needs must bide its time, 200 
Living and learning still as years assist 

Which wear the thickness thin, and let man see — 

With me who hardly am withheld at all, 

But shudderingly, scarce a shred between, 

Lie bare to the universal prick of light? 

Is it for nothing we grow old and weak, 

We whom God loves? When pain ends, gain ends 

too. 
To me, that story — ay, that Life and Death 
Of which I wrote ' it was ' — to me, it is ; 

— Is, here and now : I apprehend naught else. 210 
Is not God now i' the world his power first made? 

Is not his love at issue still with sin, 

Visibly when a wrong is done on earth? 

Love, wrong, and pain, what see I else around ? 

Yea, and the Resurrection and Uprise 

To the right hand of the throne — what is it beside, 

When such truth, breaking bounds, o'erfloods my 

soul, 
And, as I saw the sin and death, even so 
See I the need yet transiency of both, 
The good and glory consummated thence? 220 

I saw the power ; I see the Love, once weak, 
Resume the Power : and in this word ' I see,' 
Lo, there is recognized the Spirit of both 
That, moving o'er the spirit of man, unblinds 
His eye and bids him look. These are, I see ; 
But ye, the children, his beloved ones too, 
Ye need, — as I should use an optic glass 
I wondered at erewhile, somewhere i' the world. 



A Death in the Desert 257 

It had been given a crafty smith to make ; 

A tube, he turned on objects brought too close, 230 

Lying confusedly insubordinate 

For the unassisted eye to master once : 

Look through his tube, at distance now they lay, 

Become succinct, distinct, so small, so clear ! 

Just thus, ye needs must apprehend what truth 

I see, reduced to plain historic fact. 

Diminished into clearness, proved a point 

And far away : ye would withdraw your sense 

From out eternity, strain it upon time. 

Then stand before that fact, that Life and Death, 240 

Stay there at gaze, till it dispart, dispread, 

As though a star should open out, all sides, 

Grow the world on you, as it is my world. 

<' For hfe, with all it yields of joy and woe, 

And hope and fear, — believe the aged friend,— 

Is just our chance o' the prize of learnmg love, 

How love might be, hath been indeed, and is ; 

And that we hold thenceforth to the uttermost 

Such prize, despite the envy of the world, 

And, having gained truth, keep truth : that is all.— 250 

But see the double way wherein we are led. 

How the soul learns diversely from the flesh ! 

With flesh, that hath so little time to stay. 

And yields mere basement for the soul's emprise, 

Expect prompt teaching. Helpful was the light. 

And warmth was cherishing and food was choice 

To every man's flesh, thousand years ago. 

As now to yours and mine ; the body sprang 

At once to the height, and stayed: but the soul,— 



no 



Since sages who, this noontide, meditate 200 

In Rome or Athens, may descry some point 
Of the eternal power, hid yestereve ; 
And, as thereby the power's whole mass extends, 
So much extends the rether floating o'er 
The love that tops the might, the Christ in God. 
Then, as new lessons shall be learned in these 
Till earth's work stop and useless time run out, 
So duly, daily, needs provision be 
17 



258 A Death in the Desert 

For keeping the soul's prowess possible, 

Building new barriers as the old decay, 270 

Saving us from evasion of Hfe's proof, 

Putting the question ever, ' Does God love, 

And will ye hold that truth against the world ? ' 

Ye know there needs no second proof with good 

Gained for our flesh from any earthly source : 

We might go freezing, ages, — give us fire. 

Thereafter we judge fire at its full worth, 

And guard it safe through every chance, ye know ■! 

That fable of Prometheus and his theft, 

How mortals gained Love's fiery flower, grows 

old 280 

(I have been used to hear the pagans own) 
And out of mind ; but fire, howe'er its birth, 
Here is it, precious to the sophist now 
Who laughs the myth of ^schylus to scorn, 
As precious to those satyrs of his play, 
Who touched it in gay wonder at the thing. 
While were it so with the soul, — this gift of truth 
Once grasped, were this our soul's gain safe, and sure 
To prosper as the body's gain is wont — 
Why, man's probation would conclude, his earth 290 
Crumble ; for he both reasons and decides, 
Weighs first, then chooses : will he give up fire 
For gold or purple, once he knows its worth? 
Could he give Christ up were his worth as plain? 
Therefore, I say, to test man, the proofs shift, 
Nor may he grasp that fact like other fact, 
And straightway in his life acknowledge it, 
As, say, the indubitable bliss of fire. 
Sigh ye, ' It had been easier once than now ' ? 
To give you answer I am left alive ; 300 

Look at me who was present from the first ! 
Ye know what things I saw ; then came a test, 
My first, befitting me who so had seen : 
' Forsake the Christ thou sawest transfigured, him 
Who trod the sea and brought the dead to life ? 
What should wring this from thee!' — ye laugh and 

ask. 
What wrung it ? Even a torchlight and a noise, 
The sudden Roman faces, violent hands, 



A Death in the Desert 259 

And fear of what the Jews might do ! Just that, 

And it is written, ' I forsook and fled : ' 310 

There was my trial, and it ended thus. 

Ay, but my soul had gained its truth, could grow : 

Another year or two, — What little child, 

What tender woman that had seen no least 

Of all my sights, but barely heard them told, 

Who did not clasp the cross with a Hght laugh, 

Or wrap the burning robe round, thanking God ? 

Well, was truth safe forever, then? Not so. 

Already had begun the silent work 

Whereby truth, deadened of its absolute blaze, 320 

Might need love's eye to pierce the o'erstretched 

doubt. 
Teachers were busy, whispering ' All is true 
As the aged ones report : but youth can reach 
Where age gropes dimly, weak with stir and strain, 
And the full doctrine slumbers till to-day.' 
Thus, what the Roman's lowered spear was found, 
A bar to me who touched and handled truth, 
Now proved the glozing of some new shrewd tongue, 
This Ebion, this Cerinthus, or their mates. 
Till imminent was the outcry ' Save our Christ ! ' 330 
Whereon I stated much of the Lord's life 
Forgotten or misdelivered, and let it work. 
Such work done, as it will be, what comes next? 
What do I hear say, or conceive men say, 
' Was John at all, and did he say he saw ? 
Assure us, ere we ask what he might see ! ' 

'•'■ Is this indeed a burden for late days, 

And may I help to bear it with you all. 

Using my weakness which becomes your strength ? 

For if a babe were born inside this grot, 340 

Grew to a boy here, heard us praise the sun, 

Yet had but yon sole glimmer in light's place, — 

One loving him and wishful he should learn. 

Would much rejoice himself was blinded first 

Month by month here, so made to understand 

How eyes, born darkling, apprehend amiss : 

I think I could explain to such a child 

There was mor-e glow outside than gleams he caught, 



26o A Death in the Desert 

Ay, nor need urge ' I saw it, so believe ! ' 

It is a heavy burden you shall bear 350 

In latter days, new lands, or old grown strange, 

Left without nie, which must be very soon. 

What is the doubt, my brothers ? Quick with it ! 

I see you stand conversing, each new face, 

Either in fields, of yellow summer eves, 

On islets yet unnamed amid the sea ; 

Or pace for shelter 'neath a portico 

Out of the crowd in some enormous town 

Where now the larks sing in a solitude ; 

Or muse upon blank heaps of stone and sand 360 

Idly conjectured to be Ephesus : 

And no one asks his fellow any more 

' Where is the promise of his coming ? ' but 

' Was he revealed in any of his lives, 

As Power, as Love, as Influencing Soul?' 

" Quick, for time presses, tell the whole mind out. 
And let us ask and answer and be saved ! 
My book speaks on, because it cannot pass ; 
One listens quietly, nor scoffs, but pleads, 
' Here is a tale of things done ages since ; 370 

What truth was ever told the second day ? 
Wonders, that would prove doctrine, go for naught. 
Remains the doctrine, love ; well, we must love, 
And what we love most, power and love in one, 
Let us acknowledge on the record here, 
Accepting these in Christ : must Christ then be ? 
Has he been ? Did not we ourselves make him ? 
Our mind receives but what it holds, no more. 
First of the love, then ; we acknowledge Christ — 
A proof we comprehend his love, a proof 380 

We had such love already in ourselves, 
Knew first what else we should not recognize. 
'T is mere projection from man's inmost mind, 
And, what he loves, thus falls reflected back, 
Becomes accounted somewhat out of him ; 
He throws it up in air, it drops down earth's, 
With shape, name, story added, man's old way. 
How prove you Christ came otherwise at least? 
Next try the power : he made and rules the world : 



A Death in the Desert 261 

Certes there is a world once made, now ruled, 390 

Unless things have been ever as we see. 

Our sires declared a charioteer's yoked steeds 

Brought the sun up the east and down the west, 

Which only of itself now rises, sets. 

As if a hand impelled it and a will, — 

Thus they long thought, they who had will and hands : 

But the new question's whisper is distinct. 

Wherefore must all force needs be like ourselves? 

We have the hands, the will ; what made and drives 

The sun is force, is law, is named, not known, 400 

While will and love we do know ; marks of these. 

Eye-witnesses attest, so books declare — 

As that, to punish or reward our race, 

The sun at undue times arose or set 

Or else stood still : what do not men affirm ? 

But earth requires as urgently reward 

Or punishment to-day as years ago, 

And none expects the sun will interpose : 

Therefore it was mere passion and mistake. 

Or erring zeal for right, which changed the truth. 410 

Go back, far, farther, to the birth of things ; 

Ever the will, the intelligence, the love, 

Man's ! — which he gives, supposing he but finds. 

As late he gave head, body, hands and feet. 

To help these in what forms he called his gods. 

First, Jove's brow, Juno's eyes were swept away, 

But Jove's wrath, Juno's pride continued long : 

As last, will, power, and love discarded these, 

So law in turn discards power, love, and will. 

What proveth God is otherwise at least? 420 

All else projection from the mind of man ! ' 

" Nay, do not give me wine, for I am strong, 
But place my gospel where I put my hands. 

" I say that man was made to grow, not stop ; 
That help he needed once, and needs no more, 
Having grown but an inch by, is withdrawn : 
For he hath new needs, and new helps to these, 
This imports solely, man should mount on each 
New height in view ; the help whereby he mounts, 



202 



A Death in the Desert 



The ladder-rung his foot has left, may fall, 430 

Since all things suffer change save God the Truth. 
Man apprehends him newly at each stage, 
Whereat earth's ladder drops, its service done ; 
And nothing shall prove twice what once was proved. 
You stick a garden-plot with ordered twigs 
To show inside lie germs of herbs unborn, 
And check the careless step would spoil their birth ; 
But when herbs wave, the guardian twigs may go, 
Since should ye doubt of virtues, question kinds. 
It is no longer for old twigs ye look, 440 

Which proved once underneath lay store of seed, 
But to the herb's self, by what light ye boast, 
For what fruit's signs are. This book's fruit is plain, 
Nor miracles need prove it any more. 
Doth the fruit show? Then miracles bade 'ware 
At first of root and stem, saved both till now 
From trampling ox, rough boar and wanton goat. 
What ! Was man made a wheelwork to wind up, 
And be discharged, and straight wound up anew ? 
No ! — grown, his growth lasts ; taught, he ne'er 
forgets: 450 

May learn a thousand things, not twice the same. 

"This might be pagan teaching: now hear mine. 

" I say, that as the babe, you feed awhile, 

Becomes a boy and fit to feed himself. 

So, minds at first must be spoon-fed with truth : 

When they can eat, babe's nurture is withdrawn. 

I fed the babe whether it would or no : 

I bid the boy or feed himself or starve. 

I cried once, ' That ye may believe in Christ, 

Behold this blind man shall receive his sight! ' 460 

I cry now, 'Urgest thou,y^r I am shrewd 

And smile at stories how John^s word could cure — 

Repeat that miracle and take 7ny faith V 

I say, that miracle was duly wrought 

When, save for it, no faith was possible. 

Whether a change were wrought i' the shows o' the 

world. 
Whether the change came from our minds which see 



A Death in the Desert 263 

Of shows o' the world so much as and no more 
Than God wills for his purpose, — (what do I 
See now, suppose you, there where you see rock — 470 
Round us?) — I know not ; such was the effect, 
So faith grew, making void more miracles 
Because too much : they would compel, not help. 
I say, the acknowledgment of God in Christ 
Accepted by thy reason, solves for thee 
All questions in the earth and out of it, 
And has so far advanced thee to be wise. 
Wouldst thou unprove this to re-prove the proved ? 
In life's mere minute, with power to use that proof. 
Leave knowledge and revert to how it sprung ? 480 
Thou hast it ; use it and forthwith, or die ! 

" For I say, this is death and the sole death, 

When a man's loss comes to him from his gain, 

Darkness from light, from knowledge ignorance, 

And lack of love from love made manifest ; 

A lamp's death when, replete with oil, it chokes ; 

A stomach's when, surcharged with food, it starves. 

With ignorance was surety of a cure. 

When man, appalled at nature, questioned first, 

' What if there lurk a might behind this might? ' 490 

He needed satisfaction God could give, 

And did give, as ye have the written word : 

But when he finds might still redouble might, 

Yet asks, 'Since all is might, what use of will?' 

— Will, the one source of might, — he being man, 

With a man's will and a man's might, to teach 

In little how the two combine in large, — 

That man has turned round on himself and stands, 

Which in the course of nature is, to die. 

"And when man questioned, 'What if there be 
love 50° 

Behind the will and might, as real as they ? ' — 
He needed satisfaction God could give, 
And did give, as ye have the written word : 
But when, beholding that love everywhere, 
He reasons, ' Since such love is everywhere. 
And since ourselves can love and would be loved, 



264 A Death in the Desert 

We ourselves make the love, and Christ was not,' — 

How shall ye help this man who knows himself, 

That he must love and would be loved again, 

Yet, owning his own love that proveth Christ, 510 

Rejecteth Christ through every need of him? 

The lamp o'erswims with oil, the stomach flags 

Loaded with nurture, and that man's soul dies. 



" If he rejoin, ' But this was all the while 
A trick ; the fault was, first of all, in thee. 
Thy story of the places, names and dates, 
Where, when and how the ultimate truth had rise, 

— Thy prior truth, at last discovered none, 
Whence now the second suffers detriment. 

What good of giving knowledge if, because 520 

O' the manner of the gift, its profit fail? 

And why refuse what modicum of help 

Had stopped the after-doubt, impossible 

I' the face of truth — truth absolute, uniform ? 

Why must I hit of this and miss of that, 

Distinguish just as I be weak or strong, 

And not ask of thee and have answer prompt, 

Was this once, was it not once ? — then and now 

And evermore, plain truth from man to man. 

Is John's procedure just the heathen bard's? 530 

Put question of his famous play again 

How for the ephemerals' sake, Jove's fire was filched, 

And carried in a cane and brought to earth : 

The fact is in the fable, cry the wise, 

Mortals obtained the boon, so much is fact, 

Though fire be spirit and produced on earth. 

As with the Titan's, so now with thy tale : 

Why breed in us perplexity, mistake. 

Nor tell the whole truth in the proper words ? ' 

" I answer, Have ye yet to argue out 540 

The very primal thesis, plainest law, 

— Man is not God but hath God's end to serve, 
A master to obey, a course to take. 
Somewhat to cast off, somewhat to become? 
Grant this, then man must pass from old to new. 



A Death in the Desert 265 

From vain to real, from mistake to fact, 

From what once seemed good, to what now proves best. 

How could man have progression otherwise ?^ 

Before the point was mooted 'What is God?' 

No savage man inquired ' What am myself? ' 550 

Much less replied, ' First, last, and best of things.' 

Man takes that title now if he believes 

Might can exist with neither will nor love, 

In God's case — what he names now Nature's Law — 

While in himself he recognizes love 

No less than might and will : and rightly takes. 

Since if man prove the sole existent thing 

Where these combine, whatever their degree, 

However weak the might or will or love, 

So they be found there, put in evidence, 560 

He is as surely higher in the scale 

Than any might with neither love nor will, 

As life, apparent in the poorest midge, 

(When the faint dust-speck flits, ye guess its wmg,). 

Is marvellous beyond dead Atlas' self — 

Given to the nobler midge for resting-place !_ 

Thus, man proves best and highest — God, m fine, 

And thus the victory leads but to defeat, 

The gain to loss, best rise to the worst fall, 

His life becomes impossible, which is death. 570 

"But if, appealing thence, he cower, avouch 

He is mere man, and in humility 

Neither may know God nor mistake himself ; 

I point to the immediate consequence 

And say, by such confession straight he falls 

Into man's place, a thing nor God nor beast, 

Made to know that he can know and not more : 

Lower than God, who knows all and can all, 

Higher than beasts, which know and can so far 

As each beast's limit, perfect to an end,_ 580 

Nor conscious that they know, nor craving more; 

While man knows partly but conceives beside, 

Creeps ever on from fancies to the fact, 

And in this striving, this converting air 

Into a solid he may grasp and use, 

Finds progress man s distinctive mark alone, 



266 A Death in the Desert 

Not God's, and not the beasts' : God is, they are, 

Man partly is and wholly hopes to be. 

Such progress could no more attend his soul 

Were all it struggles after found at first, 590 

And guesses changed to knowledge absolute, 

Than motion wait his body, were all else 

Than it the solid earth on every side, 

Where now through space he moves from rest to rest. 

Man therefore, thus conditioned, must expect 

He could not, what he knows now, know at first ; 

What he considers that he knows to-day, 

Come but to-morrow, he will find misknown ; 

Getting increase of knowledge, since he learns 

Because he lives, which is to be a man, 600 

Set to instruct himself by his past self: 

First, like the brute, obliged by facts to learn. 

Next, as man may, obliged by his own mind, 

Bent, habit, nature, knowledge turned to law. 

God's gift was that man should conceive of truth 

And yearn to gain it, catching at mistake 

As midway help till he reach fact indeed. 

The statuary ere he mould a shape 

Boasts a like gift, the shape's idea, and next 

The aspiration to produce the same ; 610 

So, taking clay, he calls his shape thereout, 

Cries ever ' Now I have the thing I see : ' 

Yet all the while goes changing what was wrought. 

From falsehood like the truth, to truth itself. 

How were it had he cried, ' I see no face, 

No breast, no feet, i' the ineffectual clay ' ? 

Rather commend him that he clapped his hands, 

And laughed ' It is my shape and lives again ! ' 

Enjoyed the falsehood, touched it on to truth. 

Until yourselves applaud the flesh indeed 620 

In what is still flesh-imitating clay. 

Right in you, right in him, such way be man's ! 

God only makes the live shape at a jet. 

Will ye renounce this pact of creatureship ? 

The pattern on the Mount subsists no more. 

Seemed awhile, then returned to nothingness ; 

But copies, Moses strove to make thereby. 

Serve still and are replaced as time requires : 



A Death in the Desert 267 

By these, make newest vessels, reach the type ! 

If ye demur, this judgment on your head, 

Never to reach the ultimate, angels' law, 630 

Indulging every instinct of the soul 

There where law, hfe, joy, impulse are one thing ! 

" Such is the burden of the latest time. 

I have survived to hear it with my ears, 

Answer it with my lips : does this sufifice ? 

For if there be a further woe than such, 

Wherein my brothers struggling need a hand, 

So long as any pulse is left in mine. 

May I be absent even longer yet. 

Plucking the Wind ones back from the abyss, 640 

Though I should tarry a new hundred years ! " 

But he was dead : 't was about noon, the day 
Somewhat declining : we five buried him 
That eve, and then, dividing, went five ways, 
And I, disguised, returned to Ephesus. 

By this, the cave's mouth must be filled with sand. 

Valens is lost, I know not of his trace ; 

The Bactrian was but a wild, childish man, 

And could not write nor speak, but only loved : 650 

So, lest the memory of this go quite, 

Seeing that I to-morrow fight the beasts, 

I tell the same to Phoebas, whom believe ! 

For many look again to find that face, 

Beloved John's to whom I ministered, 

Somewhere in life about the world ; they err : 

Either mistaking what was darkly spoke 

At ending of his book, as he relates, 

Or misconceiving somewhat of this speech 

Scattered from mouth to mouth, as I suppose. 660 

Believe ye will not see him any more 

About the world with his divine regard ! 

For all was as I say, and now the man 

Lies as he lay once, breast to breast with God. 



[Cerinthus read and mused ; one added this 



268 Confessions 

" If Christ, as thou afifirmest, be of men 

Mere man, the first and best but nothing more, — 

Account him, for reward of what he was, 

Now and forever, wretchedest of all. 

For see : himself conceived of life as love, 670 

Conceived of love as what must enter in, 

Fill up, make one with his each soul he loved : 

Thus much for man's joy, all men's joy for him. 

Well, he is gone, thou sayest, to fit reward. 

But by this time are many souls set free, 

And very many still retained alive : 

Nay, should his coming be delayed awhile, 

Say, ten years longer (twelve years, some compute) 

See if, for every finger of thy hands. 

There be not found, that day the world shall end, 680 

Hundreds of souls, each holding by Christ's word 

That he will grow incorporate with all, 

With me as Pamphylax, with him as John, 

Groom for each bride ! Can a mere man do this ? 

Yet Christ saith, this he lived and died to do, 

Call Christ, then, the inimitable God, 

Or lost ! " 

But 't was Cerinthus that is lost.] 



CONFESSIONS 

(1864) 

What is he buzzing in my ears ? 

" Now that I come to die, 
Do I view the world as a vale of tears? " 

Ah, reverend sir, not I ! 

What I viewed there once, what I view again 

Where the physic bottles stand 
On the table's edge, — is a suburb lane, 

With a wall to my bedside hand. 

That lane sloped, much as the bottles do, 
From a house you could descry 



Prospice 269 

O'er the garden-wall ; is the curtain blue 
Or green to a healthy eye ? 

To mine, it serves for the old June weather 

Blue above lane and wall ; 
And that farthest bottle labelled " Ether " 

Is the house o'ertopping all. 

At a terrace, somewhere near the stopper, 

There watched for me, one June, 
A girl : I know, sir, it 's improper, 

My poor mind 's out of tune. 20 

Only, there was a way . . . you crept 

Close by the side, to dodge 
Eyes in the house, two eyes except : 

They styled their house " The Lodge." 

What right had a lounger up their lane ? 

But, by creeping very close, 
With the good wall's help, — their eyes might strain 

And stretch themselves to Oes, 

Yet never catch her and me together, 

As she left the attic, there, 3° 

By the rim of the bottle labelled " Ether," 

And stole from stair to stair, 

And stood by the rose-wreathed gate. Alas, 

We loved, sir — used to meet : 
How sad and bad and mad it was — 

But then, how it was sweet 1 



PROSPICE 

(1864) 

Fear death ? — to feel the fog in my throat. 

The mist in my face, 
When the snows begin, and the blasts denote 

I am nearing the place, 



270 A Face 

The power of the night, the press of the storm, 

The post of the foe ; 
Where he stands, the Arch Fear in a visible form, 

Yet the strong man must go : 
For the journey is done and the summit attained. 

And the barriers fall, 10 

Though a battle 's to fight ere the guerdon be gained, 

The reward of it all. 
I was ever a fighter, so — one fight more, 

The best and the last ! 
I would hate that death bandaged my eyes, and 
forbore. 

And bade me creep past. 
No ! let me taste the whole of it, fare like my peers 

The heroes of old, 
Bear the brunt, in a minute pay glad life's arrears 

Of pain, darkness and cold. 20 

For sudden the worst turns the best to the brave. 

The black minute 's at end, 
And the elements' rage, the fiend-voices that rave, 

Shall dwindle, shall blend. 
Shall change, shall become first a peace out of pain, 

Then a light, then thy breast, 
O thou soul of my soul ! I shall clasp thee again, 

And with God be the rest ! 



A FACE 

(1864) 

If one could have that little head of hers 

Painted upon a background of pale gold, 

Such as the Tuscan's early art prefers ! 

No shade encroaching on the matchless mould 

Of those two lips, which should be opening soft 

In the pure profile ; not as when she laughs. 

For that spoils all : but rather as if aloft 

Yon hyacinth, she loves so, leaned its staff's 

Burthen of honey-colored buds to kiss 

And capture 'twixt the lips apart for this. 

Then her lithe neck, three fingers might surround, 



Apparent Failure 271 

How it should waver on the pale gold ground 
Up to the fruit-shaped, perfect chin it lifts ! 
I know, Correggio loves to mass, in rifts 
Of heaven, his angel faces, orb on orb 
Breaking its oudine, burning shades absorb : 
But these are only massed there, I should think, 
Waiting to see some wonder momently 
Grow out, stand full, fade slow against the sky 
(That 's the pale ground you 'd see this sweet face 
by), 20 

All heaven, meanwhile, condensed into one eye 
Which fears to lose the wonder, should it wink. 



APPARENT FAILURE 

" We shall soon lose a celebrated building." 

Paris Newspaper. 
(1S64) 

No, for I '11 save it ! Seven years since, 

I passed through Paris, stopped a day 
To see the baptism of your Prince ; 

Saw, made my bow, and went my way : 
Walking the heat and headache off, 

I took the Seine-side, you surmise, 
Thought of the Congress, Gortschakoff, 

Cavour's appeal and Buol's replies, 
So sauntered till — what met my eyes ? 

Only the Doric little Morgue ! 10 

The dead-house where you show your drowned : 
Petrarch's Vaucluse makes proud the Sorgue, 

Your Morgue has made the Seine renowned. 
One pays one's debt in such a case ; 

I plucked up heart and entered, — stalked, 
Keeping a tolerable face 

Compared with some whose cheeks were chalked : 
Let them ! No Briton 's to be balked ! 

First came the silent gazers ; next, 

A screen of glass, we 're thankful for 3 20 



272 Apparent Failure 

Last, the sight's self, the sermon's text, 

The three men who did most abhor 
Their life in Paris yesterday, 

So killed themselves : and now, enthroned 
Each on his copper couch, they lay 

Fronting me, waiting to be owned. 
I thought, and think, their sin 's atoned. 

Poor men, God made, and all for that ! 

The reverence struck me ; o'er each head 
Religiously was hung its hat, 30 

Each coat dripped by the owner's bed, 
Sacred from touch : each had his berth, 

His bounds, his proper place of rest, 
Who last night tenanted on earth 

Some arch, where twelve such slept abreast, — 
Unless the plain asphalt seemed best. 

How did it happen, my poor boy? 

You wanted to be Buonaparte 
And have the Tuileries for toy, 

And could not, so it broke your heart ? 40 

You, old one by his side, I judge, 

Were, red as blood, a sociaUst, 
A leveller ! Does the Empire grudge 

You 've gained what no Republic missed? 
Be quiet, and unclench your fist ! 

And this — why, he was red in vain, 

Or black, — poor fellow that is blue ! 
What fancy was it, turned your brain ? 

Oh, women were the prize for you ! 
Money gets women, cards and dice 50 

Get money, and ill-luck gets just 
The copper couch and one clear nice 

Cool squirt of water o'er your bust, 
The right thing to extinguish lust 1 

It 's wiser being good than bad ; 

It 's safer being meek than fierce : 
It 's fitter being sane than mad. 

My own hope is, a sun will pierce 



Epilogue to Dramatis Perso7tcB 273 

The thickest cloud earth ever stretched ; 

That, after Last, returns the First, 60 

Though a wide compass round be fetched ; 

That what began best, can't end worst, 
Nor what God blessed once, prove accurst. 



EPILOGUE TO DRAMATIS PERSON.E 

(1S64) 

First Speaker, as David 

On the first of the Feast of Feasts, 

The Dedication Day, 
When the Levites joined the Priests 

At the Altar in robed array, 
Gave signal to sound and say, — 

When the thousands, rear and van, 

Swarming with one accord, 
Became as a single man 

(Look, gesture, thought and word) 
In praising and thanking the Lord, - ic 

When the singers lift up their voice, 
And the trumpets made endeavor, 

Sounding " In God rejoice ! " 
Saying, " In Him rejoice 

Whose mercy endureth forever ! " — 

Then the Temple filled with a cloud, 

Even the House of the Lord ; 
Porch bent and pillar bowed : 

For the presence of the Lord, 
In the glory of his cloud. 

Had filled the House of the Lord. 



20 



Second Speaker, as Renan 

Gone now ! All gone across the dark so far, 
Sharpening fast, shuddering ever, shutting still, 



2 74 Epilogue to Dramatis Personcs 

Dwindling into the distance, dies that star 

Which came, stood, opened once ! We gazed our fill 
With upturned faces on as real a Face 

That, stooping fi-om grave music and mild fire, 
Took in our homage, made a visible place 

Through many a depth of glory, gyre on gyre, 
For the dim human tribute. Was this true ? 30 

Could man indeed avail, mere praise of his, 
To help by rapture God's own rapture too, 

Thrill with a heart's red tinge that pure pale bliss? 
Why did it end ? Who failed to beat the breast, 
And shriek, and throw the arms protesting wide, 
When a first shadow showed the star addressed 

Itself to motion, and on either side 
The rims contracted as the rays retired ; 

The music, like a fountain's sickening pulse, 
Subsided on itself; awhile transpired 40 

Some vestige of a Face no pangs convulse, 
No prayers retard ; then even this was gone, 

Lost in the night at last. We, lone and left 
Silent through centuries, ever and anon 

Venture to probe again the vault bereft 
Of all now save the lesser lights, a mist 

Of multitudinous points, yet suns, men say — 
And this leaps ruby, this lurks amethyst. 

But where may hide what came and loved our clay ? 
How shall the sage detect in yon expanse 50 

The star which chose to stoop and stay for us? 
Unroll the records ! Hailed ye such advance 

Indeed, and did your hope evanish thus ? 
Watchers of twilight, is the worst averred ? 

We shall not look up, know ourselves are seen, 
Speak, and be sure that we again are heard, 

Acting or suffering, have the disk's serene 
Reflect our life, absorb an earthly flame, 

Nor doubt that, were mankind inert and numb. 
Its core had never crimsoned all the same, 60 

Nor, missing ours, its music fallen dumb? 
Oh, dread succession to a dizzy post. 

Sad sway of sceptre whose mere touch appalls. 
Ghastly dethronement, cursed by those the most 

On whose repugnant brow the crown next falls ! 



Epilogue to Dramatis PersoncB 275 



Third Speaker 

Witless alike of will and way divine, 

How heaven's high with earth's low should intertwine ! 

Friends, I have seen through your eyes : now use mine ! 

Take the least man of all mankind, as I ; 

Look at his head and heart, find how and why 70 

He differs from his fellows utterly : 

Then, like me, watch when nature by degrees 
Grows alive round him, as in Arctic seas 
(They said of old) the instinctive water flees 

Toward some elected point of central rock, 
As though, for its sake only, roamed the flock 
Of waves about the waste : awhile they mock 

With radiance caught for the occasion, — hues 
Of blackest hell now, now such reds and blues 
As only heaven could fitly interfuse, — 80 

The mimic monarch of the whirlpool, king 
O' the current for a minute : then they wring 
Up by the roots and oversweep the thing, 

And hasten off, to play again elsewhere 
The same part, choose another peak as bare, 
They find and flatter, feast and finish there. 

When you see what I tell you, — nature dance 

About each man of us, retire, advance, 

As though the pageant's end were to enhance 

His worth, and — once the life, his product, 
gained — 90 

Roll away elsewhere, keep the strife sustained. 
And show thus real, a thing the North but feigned — 

When you acknowledge that one world could do 
All the diverse work, old yet ever new, 
Divide us, each from other, me from you, — 



276 Prologue to Fifine at the Fair 

Why, where 's the need of Temple, when the walls 
O' the world are that ? What use of swells and falls 
From Levites' choir, Priests' cries, and trumpet-calls ? 

That one Face, far from vanish, rather grows, 

Or decomposes but to recompose, 100 

Become my universe that feels and knows ! 



PROLOGUE TO FIFINE AT THE FAIR 

(1872) 

AMPHIBIAN 

The fancy I had to-day, 

Fancy which turned a fear ! 
I swam far out in the bay. 

Since waves laughed warm and clear. 

I lay and looked at the sun, 

The noon-sun looked at me : 
Between us two, no one 

Live creature, that I could see. 

■ Yes ! There came floating by 

Me, who lay floating too, 10 

Such a strange butterfly ! 
Creature as dear as new : 

Because the membraned wings 

So wonderful, so wide, 
So sun-sufifused, were things 

Like soul and naught beside. 

A handbreadth overhead ! 

All of the sea my own, 
It owned the sky instead ; 

Both of us were alone. 20 

I never shall join its flight, 
For, naught buoys flesh in air. 

If it touch the sea — good night ! 
Death sure and swift waits there. 



Prologue to Fifine at the Fair 277 

Can the insect feel the better 

For watching the uncouth play 
Of limbs that slip the fetter, 

Pretend as they were not clay ? 

Undoubtedly I rejoice 

That the air comports so well 30 

With a creature which had the choice 

Of the land once. Who can tell ? 

What if a certain soul 

Which early slipped its sheath, 
And has for its home the whole 

Of heaven, thus look beneath. 

Thus watch one who, in the world, 

Both lives and likes life's way, 
Nor wishes the wings unfurled 

That sleep in the worm, they say? 40 

But sometimes when the weather 

Is blue, and warm waves tempt 
To free one's self of tether, 

And try a life exempt 

From worldly noise and dust, 

In the sphere which overbrims 
With passion and thought, — why, just 

Unable to fly, one swims ! 

By passion and thought upborne. 

One smiles to one's self— " They fare 50 
Scarce better, they need not scorn 

Our sea, who live in the air ! " 

Emancipate through passion 

And thought, with sea for sky, 
We substitute, in a fashion, 

For heaven — poetry : 

Which sea, to all intent. 

Gives flesh such noon-disport 
As a finer element 

Affords the spirit-sort. 60 



278 Natural Magic 

Whatever they are, we seem : 
Imagine the thing they know ; 

All deeds they do, we dream ; 
Can heaven be else but so ? 

And meantime, yonder streak 

Meets the horizon's verge ; 
That is the land, to seek 

If we tire or dread the surge : 

Land the solid and safe — 

To welcome again (confess !) 70 

When, high and dry, we chafe 

The body, and don the dress. 

Does she look, pity, wonder 

At one who mimics flight, 
Swims — heaven above, sea under, 

Yet always earth in sight ? 



NATURAL MAGIC 
(1876) 

All I can say is — I saw it ! 

The room was as bare as your hand. 

I locked in the swarth little lady, — I swear. 

From the head to the foot of her — well, quite as bare ! 

" No Nautch shall cheat me," said I, " taking my 
stand 

At this bolt which I draw ! " And this bolt — I with- 
draw it. 

And there laughs the lady, not bare, but embowered 

With — who knows what verdure, o'erfruited, o'er- 
flowered ? 

Impossible ! Only — I saw it ! 

All I can sing is — I feel it ! 10 

This life was as blank as that room ; 

I let you pass in here. Precaution, indeed? 

Walls, ceiling and floor, — not a chance for a weed ! 



Herve Riel 279 

Wide opens the entrance : where 's cold now, where 's 
gloom ? 

No May to sow seed here, no June to reveal it, 

Behold you enshrined in these blooms of your bring- 
ing) 

These fruits of your bearing— nay, birds of your 

winging ! 
A fairy-tale ! ' Only — I feel it ! 



MAGICAL NATURE 

(1876) 

Flower — I never fancied, jewel — I profess you ! 

Bright I see and soft I feel the outside of a flower. 
Save but glow inside and — jewel, I should guess you, 

Dim to sight and rough to touch : the glory is the 
dower. 



You, forsooth, a flower? Nay, my love, a jewel — 
Jewel at no mercy of a moment in your prime ! 

Time may fray the flower-face : kind be time or cruel, 
Jewel, from each facet, flash your laugh at time ! 



HERV^ RIEL 

(1876) 

On the sea and at the Hogue, sixteen hundred ninety- 
two, 
Did the English fight the French, — woe to France ! 

And, the thirty-first of May, helter-skelter through the 
blue, 

Like a crowd of frightened porpoises a shoal of sharks 
pursue, 
Came crowding ship on ship to Saint Male on the 
Ranee, 

With the English fleet in view. 



2 8o Herve Riel 

'Twas the squadron that escaped, with the victor in 
full chase ; 
First and foremost of the drove, in his great ship, 
Damefreville ; 
Close on him fled, great and small, 
Twenty-two good ships in all ; lo 

And they signalled to the place 
" Help the winners of a race ! 
Get us guidance, give us harbor, take us quick — or, 

quicker still, 
Here 's the English can and will ! " 



Then the pilots of the place put out brisk and leapt 
on board; 
" Why, what hope or chance have ships like these to 
pass?" laughed they : 
" Rocks to starboard, rocks to port, all the passage 

scarred and scored, 
Shall the ' Formidable ' here with her twelve and eighty 
guns 
Think to make the river-mouth by the single narrow 
way. 
Trust to enter where 't is ticklish for a craft of twenty 
tons, 20 

And with flow at full beside ? 
Now, 't is slackest ebb of tide. 
Reach the mooring? Rather say, 
While rock stands or water runs, 
Not a ship will leave the bay! " 

Then was called a council straight. 

Brief and bitter the debate : 

"Here's the English at our heels; would you have 

them take in tow 
All that 's left us of the fleet, linked together stern and 

bow, 
For a prize to Plymouth Sound? 30 

Better run the ships aground ! " 

(Ended Damfreville his speech). 
" Not a minute more to wait ! 

Let the Captains all and each 



Herve Riel 



2«I 



Shove ashore, then blow up, burn the vessels on the 
beach ! 
France must undergo her fate. 

" Give the word ! " But no such word 
Was ever spoke or heard ; 

For up stood, for out stepped, for in struck amid all 
these 
— A Captain ? A Lieutenant ? A Mate — first, sec- 
ond, third? 40 
No such man of mark, and meet 
With his betters to compete ! 
But a simple Breton sailor pressed by Tourville 
for the fleet, 
A poor coasting-pilot he, Herve Riel the Croisickese. 

And " What mockery or malice have we here ? " cries 
Herve Riel : 
"Are you mad, you Malouins? Are you cowards, 
fools, or rogues ? 
Talk to me of rocks and shoals, me who took the 

soundings, tell 
On my fingers every bank, every shallow, every swell 
'Twixt the offing here and Greve where the river 
disembogues ? 
Are you bought by EngHsh gold? Is it love the 
lying's for? 50 

Morn and eve, night and day, 
Have I piloted your bay. 
Entered free and anchored fast at the foot of Solidor. 
Burn the fleet and ruin France ? That were worse 
than fifty Hogues ! 
Sirs, they know I speak the truth ! Sirs, believe 
me there 's a way ! 
Only let me lead the fine, 

Have the biggest ship to steer, 
Get this ' Formidable ' clear. 
Make the others follow mine. 

And I lead them, most and least, by a passage I know 
well, 60 

Right to Solidor past Greve, 

And there lay them safe and sound j 



282 Herve Riel 

And if one ship misbehave, 
— Keel so much as grate the ground, 
Why, I 've nothing but my life, — here 's my head ! " 
cries Herv6 Riel. 

Not a minute more to wait. 

" Steer us in, then, small and great ! 

Take the helm, lead the line, save the squadron ! " 
cried its chief. 
Captains, give the sailor place ! 

He is Admiral, in brief. 70 

Still the north-wind, by God's grace ! 
See the noble fellow's face 
As the big ship, with a bound, 
Clears the entry like a hound, 

Keeps the passage as its inch of way were the wide 
sea's profound ! 
See, safe through shoal and rock, 
How they follow in a flock. 
Not a ship that misbehaves, not a keel that grates the 
ground, 
Not a spar that comes to grief! 
The peril, see, is past, 80 

All are harbored to the last, 
And just as Herve Riel hollas " Anchor ! " — sure as 

fate, 
Up the English come — too late ! 

So, the storm subsides to calm : 

They see the green trees wave 

On the heights o'erlooking Greve. 
Hearts that bled are stanched with balm. 
" Just our rapture to enhance. 

Let the English rake the bay, 
Gnash their teeth and glare askance 90 

As they cannonade away ! 
'Neath rampired Solidor pleasant riding on the 

Ranee ! " 
How hope succeeds despair on each Captain's coun- 
tenance ! 
Out burst all with one accord, 

" This is Paradise for Hell ! 



Herve Kiel 283 

Let France, let France's King 
Thank the man that did the thing ! " 
What a shout, and all one word, 

" Herv6 Riel ! " 
As he stepped in front once more, 100 

Not a symptom of surprise 
In the frank blue Breton eyes, 
Just the same man as before. 

Then said Damfreville, " My friend, 
I must speak out at the end, 

Though I find the speaking hard. 
Praise is deeper than the lips : 
You have saved the King his ships. 

You must name your own reward. 
'Faith, our sun was near eclipse ! no 

Demand whate'er you will, 
France remains your debtor still. 
Ask to heart's content and have ! or my name 's not 
Damfreville." 

Then a beam of fun outbroke 
On the bearded mouth that spoke, 
As the honest heart laughed through 
Those frank eyes of Breton blue : 
"Since I needs must say my say, 

Since on board the duty 's done, 

And from Malo Roads to Croisic Point, what is it 
but a run? — 120 

Since 'tis ask and have, I may — 

Since the others go ashore — 
Come ! A good whole holiday ! 

Leave to go and see my wife, whom I call the Belle 
Aurore ! " 

That he asked and that he got, — nothing more. 

Name and deed alike are lost : 
Not a pillar nor a post 

In his Croisic keeps alive the feat as it befell ; 
Not a head in white and black 
On a single fishing-smack, 130 



284 Epilogzie to Pacchiaroito 

In memory of the man but for whom had gone to 
wrack 
All that France saved from the fight whence Eng- 
land bore the bell. 
Go to Paris : rank on rank 

Search the heroes flung pell-mell 
On the Louvre, face and flank ! 

You shall look long enough ere you come to Herve 
Riel. 
So, for better and for worse, 
Herve Riel, accept my verse ! 
In my verse, Herve Riel, do thou once more 
Save the squadron, honor France, love thy wife the 
Belle Aurore ! 140 



EPILOGUE TO PACCHIAROTTO 

fiecTToi ... 
01 d dfi(f)op7]s o'lvov fieXavos dvOoafiiov, 

(1876) 

"The poets pour us wine — " 

Said the dearest poet I ever knew, 
Dearest and greatest and best to me. 
You clamor athirst for poetry — - 
We pour. " But when shall a vintage be " — 

You cry — " strong grape, squeezed gold from 
screw. 
Yet sweet juice, flavored flowery-fine? 
That were indeed the wine ! " 



One pours your cup — stark strength, 

Meat for a man ; and you eye the pulp 10 

Strained, turbid still, from the viscous blood 
Of the snaky bough : and you grumble " Good ! 
For it swells resolve, breeds hardihood ; 

Dispatch it, then, in a single gulp ! " 
So, down, with a wry face, goes at length 
The liquor : stuff for strength. 



Epilogue to Pacchiarotto 285 

One pours your cup — sheer sweet, 

The fragant fumes of a year condensed : 

Suspicion of all that's ripe or rathe, 

From the bud on branch to the grass in swathe 20 

" We suck mere milk of the seasons," saith 
A curl of each nostril — " dew, dispensed 

Nowise for nerving man to feat : 

Boys sip such honeyed sweet ! " 

And thus who wants wine strong, 

Waves each sweet smell of the year away ; 
Who likes to swoon as the sweets suffuse 
His brain with a mixture of beams and dews 
Turned syrupy drink — rough strength eschews : 

" What though in our veins your wine-stock stay ? 30 
The lack of the bloom does our palate wrong. 
Give us wine sweet, not strong ! " 

Yet wine is — some affirm — 

Prime wine is found in the world somewhere, 
Of portable strength with sweet to match. 
You double your heart its dose, yet catch — 
As the draught descends — a violet-smatch, 

Softness — however it came there. 
Through drops expressed by the fire and worm : 

Strong sweet wine — some affirm. 40 

Body and bouquet both ? 

'T is easy to ticket a bottle so ; 
But what was the case in the cask, my friends ? 
Cask ? Nay, the vat — where the maker mends 
His strong with his sweet (you suppose) and blends 

His rough with his smooth, till none can know 
How it comes you may tipple, nothing loth, 
Body and bouquet both. 

" You " being just ■ — the world. 

No poets — who turn, themselves, the winch 50 
Of the press ; no critics — I '11 even say, 
(Being flustered and easy of faith, to-day,) 
Who for love of the work have learned the way 

Till themselves produce home-made, at a pinch : 



286 Epilogue to Pacchiarotto 

No ! You are the world, and wine ne'er purled 
Except to please the world ! 

" For, oh the common heart ! 

And, ah the irremissible sin 
Of poets who please themselves, not us ! 
Strong wine yet sweet wine pouring thus, 60 

How please still — Pindar and ^schylus ! — 

Drink — dipt into by the bearded chin 
Alike and the bloomy hp — no part 
Denied the common heart ! 

" And might we get such grace, 

And did you moderns but stock our vault 

With the true half- brandy half-attar-gul. 

How would seniors indulge at a hearty pull 

While juniors tossed off their thimbleful ! 

Our Shakespeare and Milton escaped your fault, 70 

So, they reign supreme o'er the weaker race 
That wants the ancient grace ! " 

If I paid myself with words 

(As the French say well) I were dupe indeed! 
I were found in belief that you quaffed and bowsed 
At your Shakespeare the whole day long, caroused 
In your Milton pottle-deep nor drowsed 

A moment of night — toped on, took heed 
Of nothing like modern cream-and-curds. 

Pay me with deeds, not words ! 80 

For — see your cellarage ! 

There are forty barrels with Shakespeare's brand. 
Some five or six are abroach : the rest 
Stand spigoted, fauceted. Try and test 
What yourselves call best of the very best ! 

How comes it that still untouched they stand? 
Why don't you try tap, advance a stage 
With the rest in cellarage ? 

For — see your cellarage ! 

There are four big butts of Milton's brew. 90 

How comes it you make old drips and drops 



Epilogue to Pacchiarotto 287 

Do duty, and there devotion stops? 
Leave such an abyss of malt and hops 

Embellied in butts whicli bungs still glue? 
You hate your bard ! A fig for your rage ! 
Free him from cellarage ! 

'T is said I brew stiff drink, 

But the deuce a flavor of grape is there. 
Hardly a May-go-down, 't is just 
A sort of a gruff Go-down-it-must — 100 

No Merry-go-down, no gracious gust 

Commingles the racy with Springtide's rare ! 
'' What wonder," say you, " that we cough, and blink 
At Autumn's heady drink?" 

Is it a fancy, friends ? 

Mighty and mellow are never mixed, 
Though mighty and mellow be born at once. 
Sweet for the future, — strong for the nonce ! 
Stuff you should stow away, ensconce 

In the deep and dark, to be found fast fixed 110 
At the century's close : such time strength spends 
A-sweetening for my friends ! 

And then — ■ why, what you quaff 

With a smack of lip and a cluck of tongue, 

Is leakage and leavings — just what haps 

From the tun some learned taster taps 

With a promise " Prepare your watery chaps ! 
Here 's properest wine for old and young ! 

Dispute its perfection — you make us laugh ! 

Have faith, give thanks, but — quaff!" 120 

Leakage, I say, or — worse — 

Leavings suffice pot-valiant souls. 
Somebody, brimful, long ago. 
Frothed flagon he drained to the dregs ; and, lo, 
Down whisker and beard what an overflow ! 

Lick spilth that has trickled from classic jowls. 
Sup the single scene, sip the only verse — 
Old wine, not new and worse ! 



288 Epilogue to Pacchiarotto 

I grant you : worse by much ! 

Renounce that new where you never gained 130 
One glow at heart, one gleam at head, 
And stick to the warrant of age instead ! 
No dwarfs lap ! Fatten, by giants fed ! 

You fatten, with oceans of drink undrained ? 
You feed — who would choke did a cobweb smutch 
The Age you love so much ? 

A mine 's beneath a moor : 

Acres of moor roof fathoms of mine 
Which diamonds dot where you please to dig ; 
Yet who plies spade for the bright and big? 140 

Your product is — truffles, you hunt with a pig ! 

Since bright-and-big, when a man would dine, 
Suits badly : and therefore the Koh-i-noor 
May sleep in mine 'neath moor ! 

Wine, pulse in might from me ! 

It may never emerge in must from vat, 
Never fill cask nor furnish can, 
Never end sweet, which strong began — 
God's gift to gladden the heart of man ; 

But spirit 's at proof, I promise that ! 150 

No sparing of juice spoils what should be 
Fit brewage — mine for me. 

Man's thoughts and loves and hates ! 

Earth is my vineyard, these grew there : 
From grape of the ground, I made or marred 
My vintage ; easy the task or hard, 
Who set it — ■ his praise be my reward ! 

Earth's yield ! Who yearn for the Dark Blue Sea's, 
Let them "lay, pray, bray" — the addle-pates ! 

Mine be Man's thoughts, loves, hates ! 1 60 

But some one says, " Good Sir ! " 

('T is a worthy versed in what concerns 
The making such labor turn out well,) 
" You don't suppose that the nosegay-smell 
Needs always come from the grape ? Each bell 
At your foot, each bud that your culture spurns, 



Epilogue to Pacchiarotto 289 

The very cowslip would act like myrrh 
On the stiffest brew — good Sir ! 

" Cowslips, abundant birth 

O'er meadow and hillside, vineyard too, 170 

— Like a schoolboy's scrawlings in and out 
Distasteful lesson-book — all about 
Greece and Rome, victory and rout — 

Love-verses instead of such vain ado ! 
So, fancies froHc it o'er the earth 

Where thoughts have rightlier birth. 

" Nay, thoughtlings they themselves : 

Loves, hates — in little and less and least ! 
Thoughts ? ' What is a man beside a mount I ' 
Loves ? '•Absent — poor lovers the minutes cotmt / ' 180 
Hates ? ' Fie — Pope's letters to Martha Blount 1 ' 

These furnish a wine for a children's-feast : 
Insipid to man, they suit the elves 

Like thoughts, loves, hates themselves." 

And, friends, beyond dispute 

I too have the cowslips dewy and dear. 

Punctual as Springtide forth peep they : 

I leave them to make my meadow gay. 

But I ought to pluck and impound them, eh ? 

Not let them alone, but deftly shear 190 

And shred and reduce to — what may suit 
Children, beyond dispute? 

And, here 's May-month, all bloom, 

All bounty : what if I sacrifice ? 
If I out with shears and shear, nor stop 
Shearing till prostrate, lo, the crop ? 
And will you prefer it to ginger-pop 

When I 've made you wine of the memories 
Which leave as bare as a churchyard tomb 

My meadow, late all bloom? 200 

Nay, what ingratitude 

Should I hesitate to amuse the wits 
That have pulled so long at my flask, nor grudged 

19 



290 Epilogue to PaccJiiarotto 

The headache that paid their pains, nor budged 
From bunghole before they sighed and judged 

" Too rough for our taste, to-day, befits 
The racy and right when the years conclude ! " 
Out on ingratitude ! 

Grateful or ingrate — none, 

No cowslip of all my fairy crew 2 1 

Shall help to concoct what makes you wink, 
And goes to your head till you think you think ! 
I like them alive : the printer's ink 

Would sensibly tell on the perfume too. 
I may use up my nettles, ere I 've done ; 
But of cowslips — friends get none ! 

Don't nettles make a broth 

Wholesome for blood grown lazy and thick? 
Maws out of sorts make mouths out of taste. 
My Thirty-four Port — no need to waste 22 

On a tongue that 's fur and a palate — paste ! 

A magnum for friends who are sound ! the sick — 
I '11 posset and cosset them, nothing loth, 
Henceforward with nettle-broth ! 



La Saisiaz 291 



LA SAISIAZ 

(1878) 

I 

Good, to forgive ; 

Best, to forget ! 

Living, we fret ; 
Dying, we live. 
Fretless and free, 

Soul, clap thy pinion ! 

Earth have dominion, 
Body, o'er thee ! 



Wander at will. 

Day after day, — 10 

Wander away, 
Wandering still — 
Soul that canst soar ! 

Body may slumber : 

Body shall cumber 
Soul-fiight no more. 

Ill 

Waft of soul's wing ! 

What lies above ? 

Sunshine and Love, 
Skyblue and Spring ! 20 

Body hides — where ? 

Ferns of all feather, 

Mosses and heather, 
Yours be the care ! 



292 La Saisiaz 

LA SAISIAZ 

A. E. S. September 14, 1877. 

Dared and done : at last I stand upon the summit, 

Dear and True ! 
Singly dared and done ; the climbing both of us were 

bound to do. 
Petty feat and yet prodigious : every side my glance 

was bent 
O'er the grandeur and the beauty lavished through the 

whole ascent. 
Ledge by ledge, out broke new marvels, now minute 

and now immense : 
Earth's most exquisite disclosure, heaven's own God 

in evidence ! 
And no berry in its hiding, no blue space in its out- 
spread. 
Pleaded to escape my footstep, challenged my emerging 

head, 
(As I climbed or paused from climbing, now o'er- 

branched by shrub and tree, 
Now built round by rock and boulder, now at just a 

turn set free, 10 

Stationed face to face with — Nature ? rather with 

Infinitude,) 
— No revealment of them all, as singly I my path 

pursued, 
But a bitter touched its sweetness, for the thought 

stung " Even so 
Both of us had loved and wandered just the same, five 

days ago ! " 
Five short days, sufficient hardly to entice, from out 

its den 
Splintered in the slab, this pink perfection of the 

cyclamen ; 
Scarce enough to heal and coat with amber gum the 

sloe-tree's gash. 
Bronze the clustered wilding apple, redden ripe the 

mountain-ash : 



La Saisiaz 293 

Yet of might to place between us — Oh the barrier! 

Yon Profound 
Shrinks beside it, proves a pin-point : barrier this, 

without a bound ! 20 

Boundless though it be, I reach you : somehow seem 

to have you here 

— Who are there. Yes, there you dwell now, plain 

the four low walls appear ; 
Those are vineyards, they enclose from ; and the 
little spire which points 

— That's Collonge, henceforth your dwelling. All 

the same, howe'er disjoints 

Past from present, no less certain you are here, not 
there : have dared, 

Done the feat of mountain-climbing, — five days since, 
we both prepared 

Daring, doing, arm in arm, if other help should haply 
fail. 

For you asked, as forth we sallied to see sunset from 
the vale, 

" Why not try for once the mountain, — take a fore- 
taste, snatch by stealth 

Sight and sound, some unconsidered fragment of the 
hoarded wealth ? 30 

Six weeks at its base, yet never once have we together 
won 

Sight or sound by honest cHmbing : let us two have 
dared and done 

Just so much of twilight journey as may prove to- 
morrow's jaunt 

Not the only mode of wayfare — wheeled to reach the 
eagle's haunt ! " 

So, we turned from the low grass-path you were pleased 
to call " your own," 

Set our faces to the rose-bloom o'er the summit's 
front of stone 

Where Saleve obtains, from Jura and the sunken sun 
she hides, 

Due return of blushing "Good Night," rosy as a borne- 
off bride's. 

For his masculine " Good Morrow " when, with sun- 
rise still in hold. 



294 ^^ Saisiaz 

Gay he hails her, and, magnific, thrilled her black 

length burns to gold. 40 

Up and up we went, how careless — nay, how joyous ! 

All was new, 
All was strange. '' Call progress toilsome ? that were 

just insulting you ! 
How the trees must temper noontide ! Ah, the 

thicket's sudden break ! 
What will be the morning glory, when at dusk thus 

gleams the lake? 
Light by light puts forth Geneva : what a land — and, 

of the land, 
Can there be a lovelier station than this spot where now 

we stand? 
Is it late, and wrong to hnger? True, to-morrow 

makes amends. 
Toilsome progress? child's play, call it — specially 

when one descends ! 
There, the dread descent is over — hardly our adven- 
ture, though ! 
Take the vale where late we left it, pace the grass- 
path, 'mine,' you know! 50 
Proud completion of achievement ! " And we paced 

it, praising still 
That soft tread on velvet verdure as it wound through 

hill and hill ; 
And at very end there met us, coming from Collonge, 

the pair 
— All our people of the Chalet — two, enough and 

none to spare. 
So, we made for home together, and we reached it as 

the stars 
One by one came lamping — chiefly that prepotency 

of Mars — 
And your last word was " I owe you this enjoyment ! " 

— met with " Nay : 
With yourself it rests to have a month of morrows like 

to-day ! " 
Then the meal, with talk and laughter, and the news of 

that rare nook 
Yet untroubled by the tourist, touched on by no 

travel-book, 60 



La Saisiaz 295 

All the same — though latent — patent, hybrid birth 

of land and sea, 
And (our travelled friend assured you) — if such 

miracle might be — 
Comparable for completeness of both blessings — all 

around 
Nature, and, inside her circle^ safety from world's 

sight and sound — 
Comparable to our Saisiaz. " Hold it fast and guard 

it well ! 
Go and see and vouch for certain, then come back 

and never tell 
Living soul but us ; and haply, prove our sky from 

cloud as clear, 
There may we four meet, praise fortune just as now, 

another year ! " 



Thus you charged him on departure : not without the 

final charge, 
" Mind to-morrow's early meeting ! We must leave 

our journey marge 70 

Ample for the wayside wonders : there 's the stoppage 

at the inn 
Three-parts up the mountain, where the hardships of 

the track begin ; 
There 's the convent worth a visit ; but, the triumph 

crowning all — 
There 's Saleve's own platform facing glory which 

strikes greatness small, 
— Blanc, supreme above his earth-brood, needles red 

and white and green, 
Horns of silver, fangs of crystal set on edge in his 

demesne. 
So, some three weeks since, we saw them : so, to- 
morrow we intend 
You shall see them likewise ; therefore Good Night 

till to-morrow, friend!" 
Last, the nothings that extinguish embers of a vivid 

day: 
"What might be the Marshal's next move, what 

Gambetta's counter-play?" 80 



296 La Saisiaz 

Till the landing on the staircase saw escape the latest 

spark : 
" Sleep you well ! " " Sleep but as well, you ! " — 

lazy love quenched, all was dark. 

Nothing dark next day at sundawn ! Up I rose and 

forth I fared : 
Took my plunge within the bath-pool, pacified the 

watch-dog scared. 
Saw proceed the transmutation — Jura's black to one 

gold glow, 
Trod your level path that let me drink the morning 

deep and slow, 
Reached the little quarry — ravage recompensed by 

shrub and fern — 
Till the overflowing ardors told me time was for 

return. 
So, return I did, and gayly. But, for once, from no 

far mound 
Waved salute a tall white figure. " Has her sleep 

been so profound ? 90 

Foresight, rather, prudent saving strength for day's 

expenditure ! 
Ay, the chamber-window 's open : out and on the 

terrace, sure ! " 

No, the terrace showed no figure, tall, white, leaning 

through the wreaths, 
Tangle-twine of leaf and bloom that intercept the air 

one breathes, 
Interpose between one's love and Nature's loving, hill 

and dale 
Down to where the blue lake's wrinkle marks the 

river's inrush pale 

— Mazy Arve : whereon no vessel but goes sliding 

white and plain, 
Not a steamboat pants from harbor but one hears 

pulsate amain. 
Past the city's congregated peace of homes and pomp 

of spires 

— Man's mild protest that there 's something more 

than Nature, man requires, 100 



La Saisiaz 297 

And that, useful as is Nature to attract the tourist's 

foot, 
Quiet, slow, sure money-making proves the matter's 

very root, — 
Need for body, — while the spirit also needs a com- 
fort reached 
By no help of lake or mountain, but the texts whence 

Calvin preached. 
" Here 's the veil withdrawn from landscape : up to 

Jura and beyond, 
All awaits us ranged and ready ; yet she violates the 

bond. 
Neither leans nor looks nor listens: why is this?" 

A turn of eye 
Took the whole sole answer, gave the undisputed 

reason " why " ! 

This dread way you had your summons ! No pre- 
monitory touch, 
As you talked and laughed ('t is told me) scarce a 

minute ere the clutch no 

Captured you in cold forever. Cold ? nay, warm you 

were as life 
When I raised you, while the others used, in passionate 

poor strife, 
All the means that seemed to promise any aid, and all 

in vain. 
Gone you were, and I shall never see that earnest face 

again 
Grow transparent, grow transfigured, with the sudden 

light that leapt 
At the first word's provocation, from the heart-deeps 

where it slept. 

Therefore, paying piteous duty, what seemed You 

have we consigned 
Peacefully to — what I think were, of all earth-beds, to 

your mind 
Most the choice for quiet, yonder : low walls stop the 

vines' approach, 
Lovingly Saleve protects you ; village-sports will ne'er 

encroach 120 



298 La Saisiaz 

On the stranger lady's silence, whom friends bore so 

kind and well 
Thither " just for love's sake," — such their own word 

was : and who can tell ? 
You supposed that few or none had known and loved 

you in the world : 
Maybe ! flower that 's full-blown tempts the butterfly, 

not flower that 's furled. 
But more learned sense unlocked you, loosed the 

sheath and let expand 
Bud to bell and outspread flower-shape at the least 

warm touch of hand 
— Maybe, throb of heart, beneath which — quickening 

farther than it knew — 
Treasure oft was disembosomed, scent all strange and 

unguessed hue. 
Disembosomed, re-embosomed, —must one memory 

suffice, 
Prove I knew an Alpine-rose which all beside named 

Edelweiss? 130 

Rare thing, red or white, you rest now: two days 

slumbered through ; and since 
One day more will see me rid of this same scene 

whereat I wince, 
Tetchy at all sights and sounds and pettish at each 

idle charm 
Proffered me who pace now singly where we two went 

arm in arm, — 
I have turned upon my weakness : asked, " And what, 

forsooth, prevents 
That, this latest day allowed me, I fulfil of her in- 
tents 
One she had the most at heart — that we should thus 

again survey 
From Saleve Mont Blanc together?" Therefore, — 

dared and done to-day 
Climbing, — here I stand : but you — where ? 

If a spirit of the place 

Broke the silence, bade me question, promised answer, 

— what disgrace 140 



La Saisiaz 299 

Did I stipulate " Provided answer suit my hopes, not 
fears ! " 

Would I shrink to learn my lifetime's limit — days, 
weeks, months or years? 

Would I shirk assurance on each point whereat I can 
but guess — 

" Does the soul survive the body ? Is there God's 
self, no or yes? " 

If I know my mood, 't were constant — come in what- 
soe'er uncouth 

Shape it should, nay, formidable — so the answer were 
but truth. 

Well, and wherefore shall it daunt me, when 't is I 

myself am tasked, 
When, by weakness weakness questioned, weakly 

answers — weakly asked? 
Weakness never needs be falseness : truth is truth in 

each degree 
— Thunder-pealed by God to Nature, whispered by 

my soul to me. 150 

Nay, the weakness turns to strength and triumphs in 

a truth beyond : 
''Mine is but man's truest answer — how were it did 

God respond ? " 
I shall no more dare to mimic such response in futile 

speech, 
Pass off human lisp as echo of the sphere-song out of 

reach. 
Than, — because it well may happen yonder, where 

the far snows blanch 
Mute Mont Blanc, that who stands near them sees and 

hears an avalanche, — 
I shall pick a clod and throw, — cry, ' ' Such the sight 

and such the sound ! 
What though I nor see nor hear them? Others do, 

the proofs abound ! " 
Can I make my eye an eagle's, sharpen ear to 

recognize 
Sound o'er league and league of silence ? Can I know, 

who but surmise ? 160 

If I dared no self-deception when, a week since, I and you 



300 La Saisiaz 

Walked and talked along the grass-path, passing 

lightly in review 
What seemed hits and what seemed misses in a certain 

fence-play, — strife 
Sundry minds of mark engaged in " On the Soul and 

Future Life," — 
If I ventured estimating what was come of parried 

thrust, 
Subtle stroke, and rightly, wrongly, estimating could 

be just 
— Just, though life so seemed abundant in the form 

which moved by mine, 
I might well have played at feigning, fooling, — laughed 

" What need opine 
Pleasure must succeed to pleasure, else past pleasure 

turns to pain, 
And this first life claims a second, else I count its 

good no gain?" — 170 

Much less have I heart to palter when the matter 

to decide 
Now becomes '' Was ending ending once and always, 

when you died ? " 
Did the face, the form I lifted as it lay, reveal the loss 
Not alone of life but soul? A tribute to yon flowers 

and moss, 
What of you remains beside ? A memory ! Easy to 

attest 
* Certainly from out the world that one believes who 

knew her best 
Such was good in her, such fair, which fair and good 

were great perchance 
Had but fortune favored, bidden each shy faculty 

advance ; 
After all — who knows another ? Only as I know, I 

speak." 
So much of you lives within me while I live my year or 

week. 180 

Then my fellow takes the tale up, not unwilling to aver 
Duly in his turn, " I knew him best of all, as he knew 

her : 
Such he was, and such he was not, and such other 

might have been 



La Saisiaz 301 

But that somehow every actor, somewhere in this 

earthly scene, 
Fails." And so both memories dwindle, yours and 

mine together linked, 
Till there is but left for comfort, when the last spark 

proves extinct, 
This — that somewhere new existence, led by men and 

women new. 
Possibly attains perfection coveted by me and you; 
While ourselves, the only witness to what work our 

life evolved, 
Only to ourselves proposing problems proper to be 

solved 190 

By ourselves alone, — who working ne'er shall know 

if work bear fruit 
Others reap and garner, heedless how produced by 

stalk and root, — 
We who, darkling, timed the day's birth, — struggling, 

testified to peace, — 
Earned, by dint of failure, triumph, — we, creative 

thought, must cease 
In created word, thought's echo, due to impulse long 

since sped ! 
Why repine ? There 's ever some one lives although 

ourselves be dead ! 

Well, what signifies repugnance ? Truth is truth how- 
e'er it strike. 

Fair or foul the lot apportioned life on earth, we bear 
alike. 

Stalwart body idly yoked to stunted spirit, powers, that 
fain 

Else would soar, condemned to grovel, groundlings 
through the fleshly chain, — 200 

Help that hinders, hindrance proved but help dis- 
guised when all too late, — 

Hindrance is the fact acknowledged, howsoe'er ex- 
plained as Fate, 

Fortune, Providence : we bear, own life a burthen more 
or less. 

Life thus owned unhappy, is there supplemental hap- 
piness 



302 La Saisiaz 

Possible and probable in life to come? or must we 

count 
Life a curse and not a blessing, summed-up in its 

whole amount, 
Help and hindrance, joy and sorrow ? 

Why should I want courage here? 
I will ask and have an answer, — with no favor, with 

no fear, — 
From myself. How much, how little, do I inwardly 

believe 
True that controverted doctrine ? Is it fact to which 

I cleave, 210 

Is it fancy I but cherish, when I take upon my lips 
Phrase the solemn Tuscan fashioned, and declare the 

soul's eclipse 
Not the soul's extinction? take his ''I believe and I 

declare — 
Certain am I — from this life I pass into a better, there 
Where that lady hves of whom enamored was my soul " 

— where this 
Other lady, my companion dear and true, she also is ? 

I have questioned and am answered. Question, an- 
swer presuppose 
Two points : that the thing itself which questions, 

answers, — is, it knows ; 
As it also knows the thing perceived outside itself, — 

a force 
Actual ere its own beginning, operative through its 

course, 220 

Unaffected by its end, — that this thing likewise needs 

must be ; 
Call this — God, then, call that — soul, and both — 

the only facts for me. 
Prove them facts.'' that they o'erpass my power of 

proving, proves them such : 
Fact it is I know I know not something which is fact 

as much. 
What before caused all the causes, what effect of all 

effects 
Haply follows, — these are fancy. Ask the rush if it 

suspects 



La Saisiaz 303 

Whence and how the stream which floats it had a rise, 

and where and how 
Falls or flows on still ! What answer makes the rush 

except that now 
Certainly it floats and is, and, no less certain than 

itself, 
Is the everyway external stream that now through shoal 

and shelf 230 

Floats it onward, leaves it — maybe — wrecked at last, 

or lands on shore 
There to root again and grow and flourish stable ever- 
more. 
— Maybe ! mere surmise not knowledge : much con- 
jecture styled belief, 
What the rush conceives the stream means through 

the voyage blind and brief 
Why, because I doubtless am, shall I as doubtless be ? 

" Because 
God seems good and wise." Yet under this our life's 

apparent laws 
Reigns a wrong which, righted once, would give quite 

other laws to life. 
" He seems potent." Potent here, then : why are 

right and wrong at strife ? 
Has in life the wrong the better? Happily life ends 

so soon ! 
Right predominates in life ? Then why two lives and 

double boon? 240 



" Anyhow, we want it : wherefore want? " Because, 
without the want, 

Life, now human, would be brutish : just that hope, 
however scant, 

Makes the actual life worth leading; take the hope 
therein away, 

All we have to do is surely not endure another 
day. 

This life has its hopes for this life, hopes that promise 
joy : life done — 

Out of all the hopes, how many had complete fulfil- 
ment ? None. 



304 La Saisiaz 

" But the soul is not the body : " and the breath is not 

the flute ; 
Both together make the music : either marred, and all 

is mute. 
Truce to such old sad contention whence, according 

as we shape 
Most of hope or most of fear, we issue in a half- 
escape : 250 
" We believe " is sighed. I take the cup of comfort 

proffered thus, 
Taste and try each soft ingredient, sweet infusion, and 

discuss 
What their blending may accomplish for the cure of 

doubt, till — slow. 
Sorrowful, but how decided ! needs must I o'erturn it 

— so ! 

Cause before, effect behind me — blanks ! The mid- 
way point I am, 
Caused, itself — itself efficient : in that narrow space 

must cram 
All experience — out of which there crowds conjecture 

manifold. 
But, as knowledge, this comes only — things may be 

as I behold, 
Or may not be, but, without me and above me, things 

there are ; 
I myself am what I know not — ignorance which proves 

no bar 260 

To the knowledge that I am, and, since I am, can 

recognize 
What to me is pain and pleasure : this is sure, the rest 

— surmise. 

If my fellows are or are not, what may please them and 
what pain, — 

Mere surmise : my own experience — that is knowl- 
edge, once again ! 



I have lived, then, done and suffered, loved and hated, 

learnt and taught 
This — there is no reconciling wisdom with a world 

distraught. 



La Saisiaz 305 

Goodness with triumphant evil, power with failure in 

the aim, 
If — (to my own sense, remember ! though none other 

feel the same !) 
If you bar me from assuming earth to be a pupil's 

place, 
And life, time — with all their chances, changes — 

just probation-space, 270 

Mine, for me. But those apparent other mortals — 

theirs, for them? 
Knowledge stands on my experience : all outside its 

narrow hem, 
Free surmise may sport and welcome ! Pleasures,'pains 

affect mankind 
Just as they affect myself? Why, here 's my neighbor 

color-blind, 
Eyes like mine to all appearance : " green as grass " 

do I affirm? 
" Red as grass " he contradicts me ; — which employs 

the proper term ? 
Were we two the earth's sole tenants, with no third for 

referee. 
How should I distinguish ? Just so, God must judge 

'twixt man and me. 
To each mortal peradventure earth becomes a new 

machine, 
Pain and pleasure no more tally in our sense than red 

and green ; 280 

Still, without what seems such mortal's pleasure, pain, 

my life were lost 
— Life, my whole sole chance to prove — although at 

man's apparent cost — 
What is beauteous and what ugly, right to strive for, 

right to shun. 
Fit to help and fit to hinder, — prove my forces every 

one, 
Good and evil, — learn life's lesson, hate of evil, love 

of good, 
As 't is set me, understand so much as may be under- 
stood — 
Solve the problem : " From thine apprehended scheme 

of things, deduce 

20 



3o6 La Saisiaz 

Praise or blame of its contriver, shown a niggard or 

profuse 
In eacli good or evil issue ! nor miscalculate alike 
Counting one the other in the final balance, which to 

strike, 290 

Soul was born and life allotted : ay, the show of things 

unfurled 
For thy summing-up and judgment, — thine, no other 

mortal's world ! " 

What though fancy scarce may grapple with the com- 
plex and immense 
— "His own world for every mortal?" Postulate 

omnipotence ! 
Limit power, and simple grows the complex : shrunk 

to atom size, 
That which loomed immense to fancy low before my 

reason Hes, — 
I survey it and pronounce it work like other work : 

success 
Here and there, the workman's glory, — here and there, 

his shame no less, 
Failure as conspicuous. Taunt not "Human work 

ape work divine ? " 
As the power, expect performance ! God's be God's 

as mine is mine ! 300 

God whose power made man and made man's wants, 

and made, to meet those wants, 
Heaven and earth which, through the body, prove the 

spirit's ministrants, 
Excellently all, — did he lack power or was the will in 

fault 
When he let blue heaven be shrouded o'er by vapors 

of the vault, 
Gay earth drop her garlands shrivelled at the first in- 
fecting breath 
Of the serpent pains which herald, swarming in, the 

dragon death? 
What, no way but this that man may learn and lay to 

heart how rife 
Life were with delights would only death allow their 

taste to life ? 



La Saisiaz 307 

Must the rose sigh " Pluck — I perish I " must the 

eve weep "Gaze — I fade!" 
— Every sweet warn " 'Ware my bitter ! " every shine 

bid "Wait my shade " ? 310 

Can we love but on condition, that the thing we love 

must die? 
Needs there groan a world in anguish just to teach us 

sympathy — • 
Multitudinously wretched that we, wretched too, may 

guess 
What a preferable state were universal happiness? 
Hardly do I so conceive the outcome of that power 

which went 
To the making of the worm there in yon clod its 

tenement, 
Any more than I distinguish aught of that which, wise 

and good, 
Framed the leaf, its plain of pasture, dropped the dew, 

its fineless food. 
Nay, were fancy fact, were earth and all it holds illu- 
sion mere, 
Only a machine for teaching love and hate and hope 

and fear 320 

To myself, the sole existence, single truth 'mid false- 
hood, — well ! 
If the harsh throes of the prelude die not off into the swell 
Of that perfect piece they sting me to become a-strain 

for, — if 
Roughness of the long rock-clamber lead not to the 

last of cliff, 
First of level country where is sward my pilgrim-foot 

can prize, — 
PlalnHer! if this life's conception new hfe fail to 

realize, — 
Though earth burst and proved a babble glassing hues 

of hell, one huge 
Reflex of the devil's doings — God's work by no sub- 
terfuge — 
(So death's kindly touch informed me as it broke the 

glamour, gave 
Soul and body both release from life's long nightmare 

in the grave) — 330 



3o8 La Saisiaz 

Still, — with no more Nature, no more Man as riddle 

to be read, 
Only my own joys and sorrows now to reckon real 

instead, — 
I must say — or choke in silence — " Howsoever 

came my fate, 
Sorrow did and joy did nowise — hfe well weighed — 

preponderate." 
By necessity ordained thus? I shall bear as best I 

can ; 
By a cause all-good, all-wise, all-potent? No, as I am 

man ! 
Such were God : and was it goodness that the good 

within my range 
Or had evil in admixture or grew evil's self by 

change ? 
Wisdom — that becoming wise meant making slow and 

sure advance 
From a knowledge proved in error to acknowledged 

ignorance? 340 

Power! 'tis just the main assumption reason most 

revolts at ! power 
Unavailing for bestowment on its creature of an hour, 
Man, of so much proper action rightly aimed and 

reaching aim. 
So much passion, — no defect there, no excess, but still 

the same, — 
As what constitutes existence, pure perfection bright 

as brief 
For yon worm, man's fellow-creature, on yon happier 

world — its leaf ! 
No, as I am man, 1 mourn the poverty I must impute : 
Goodness, wisdom, power, all bounded, each a human 

attribute ! 



But, O world outspread beneath me ! only for myself 

I speak, 
Nowise dare to play the spokesman for my brothers 

strong and weak, 350 

Full and empty, wise and foolish, good and bad, in 

every age, 



La Saisiaz 309 

Every clime, I turn my eyes from, as in one or other 

stage 
Of a torture writhe they, Job-like couched on dung 

and crazed with blains 
— Wherefore? whereto? ask the whirlwind what the 

dread voice thence explains ! 
I shall "vindicate no way of God's to man," nor 

stand apart, 
" Laugh, be candid," while I watch it traversing the 

human heart ! 
Traversed heart must tell its story uncommented on : 

no less 
Mine results in, " Only grant a second Hfe ; I ac- 
quiesce 
In this present life as failure, count misfortune's worst 

assaults 
Triumph, not defeat, assured that loss so much the 

more exalts 360 

Gain about to be. For at what moment did I so 

advance 
Near to knowledge as when frustrate of escape from 

ignorance ? 
Did not beauty prove most precious when its opposite 

obtained 
Rule, and truth seem more than ever potent because 

falsehood reigned? 
While for love — Oh how but, losing love, does whoso 

loves succeed 
By the death-pang to the birth-throe — learning what 

is love indeed ? 
Only grant my soul may carry high through death her 

cup unspilled, 
Brimming though it be with knowledge, life's loss drop 

by drop distilled, 
I shall boast it mine — the balsam, bless each kindly 

wrench that wrung 
From Hfe's tree its inmost virtue, tapped the root 

whence pleasure sprung, 370 

Barked the bole, and broke the bough, and bruised 

the berry, left all grace 
Ashes in death's stern alembic, loosed elixir in its 

place ! " 



3IO La Saisiaz 

Witness, Dear and True, how little I was 'ware of — 
not your worth 

— That I knew, my heart assures me — but of what a 

shade on earth 
Would the passage from my presence of the tall white 

figure throw 
O'er the ways we walked together ! Somewhat narrow, 

somewhat slow, 
Used to seem the ways, the walking : narrow ways 

are well to tread 
When there 's moss beneath the footstep, honeysuckle 

overhead : 
Walking slow to beating bosom surest solace soonest 

gives, 
Liberates the brain o'erloaded — best of all restora- 
tives. 380 
Nay, do I forget the open vast where soon or late 

converged 
Ways though winding? — world-wide heaven-high sea 

where music slept or surged 
As the angel had ascendant, and Beethoven's Titan 

mace 
Smote the immense to storm, Mozart would by a 

finger's lifting chase ? 
Yes, I knew — but not with knowledge such as thrills 

me while I view 
Yonder precinct which henceforward holds and hides 

the Dear and True. 
Grant me (once again) assurance we shall each meet 

each some day. 
Walk — but with how bold a footstep ! on a way — but 

what a way ! 

— Worst were best, defeat were triumph, utter loss 

were utmost gain. 
Can it be, and must, and will it? 

Silence ! Out of fact's domain, 390 
Just surmise prepared to mutter hope, and also fear — 

dispute 
Fact's inexorable ruling, " Outside fact, surmise be 

mute ! " 
Well! 



La Saisiaz 311 

Ay, well and best, if fact's self I may force the 

answer from ! 
'T is surmise I stop the mouth of ! Not above in 

yonder dome 
All a rapture with its rose-glow, — not around, where 

pile and peak 
Strainingly await the sun's fall, — not beneath, where 

crickets creak, 
Birds assemble for their bedtime, soft the tree-top 

swell subsides, — 
No, nor yet within my deepest sentient self the knowl- 
edge hides. 
Aspiration, reminiscence, plausibilities of trust 
— Now the ready " Man were wronged else," now the 

rash " and God unjust " — 400 

None of these I need. Take thou, my soul, thy 

solitary stand, 
Umpire to the champions Fancy, Reason, as on either 

hand 
Amicable war they wage, and play the foe in thy 

behoof ! 
Fancy thrust and Reason parry ! Thine the pri^e who 

stand aloof! 

FANCY 

I concede the thing refused : henceforth no certainty 
more plain 

Than this mere surmise that after body dies soul lives 
again. 

Two, the only facts acknowledged late, are now in- 
creased to three — 

God is, and the soul is, and, as certain, after death 
shall be. 

Put this third to use in life, the time for using fact! 

REASON 

I do: 
Find it promises advantage, coupled with the other 

two. 410 

Life to come will be improvement on the life that 's 

now ; destroy 



312 La Saisiaz 

Body's thwartings, there's no longer screen betwixt 

soul and soul's joy. 
Why should we expect new hindrance, novel tether? 

In this first 
Life, I see the good of evil, why our world began at 

worst : 
Since time means amelioration, tardily enough dis- 
played, 
Yet a mainly onward moving, never wholly retrograde. 
We know more though we know little, we grow stronger 

though still weak, 
Partly see though all too purblind, stammer though we 

cannot speak. 
There is no such grudge in God as scared the ancient 

Greek, no fresh 
Substitute of trap for drag-net, once a breakage in the 

mesh. 420 

Dragons were, and serpents are, and blindworms will 

be : ne'er emerged 
Any new-created python for man's plague since earth 

was purged. 
Failing proof, then, of invented trouble to replace the 

old, 
O'er this life the next presents advantage much and 

manifold : 
Which advantage — in the absence of a fourth and 

farther fact 
Now conceivably surmised, of harm to follow from 

the act — 
I pronounce for man's obtaining at this moment. 

Why delay? 
Is he happy ? happiness will change : anticipate the day ! 
Is he sad ? there 's ready refuge : of all sadness death 's 

prompt cure ! 
Is he both, in mingled measure ? cease a burden to 

endure ! 430 

Pains with sorry compensations, pleasures stinted in 

the dole, 
Power that sinks and pettiness that soars, all halved 

and nothing whole, 
Idle hopes that lure man onward, forced back by as 

idle fears — 



La Saisiaz 313 

What a load he stumbles under through his glad sad 
seventy years, 

When a touch sets right the turmoil, lifts his spirit 
where, flesh-freed, 

Knowledge shall be rightly named so, all that seems 
be truth indeed ! 

Grant his forces no accession, nay, no faculty's in- 
crease, 

Only let what now exists continue, let him prove in 
peace 

Power whereof the interrupted unperfected play en- 
ticed 

Man through darkness, which to lighten any spark of 
hope sufficed, — 440 

What shall then deter his dying out of darkness into 
light? 

Death itself perchance, brief pain that 's pang, con- 
densed and infinite ? 

But at worst, he needs must brave it one day, while, 
at best, he laughs, — 

Drops a drop within his chalice, sleep not death his 
science quaffs ! 

Any moment claims more courage, when, by crossing 
cold and gloom, 

Manfully man quits discomfort, makes for the pro- 
vided room 

Where the old friends want their fellow, where the 
new acquaintance wait. 

Probably for talk assembled, possibly to sup in 
state ! 

I afifirm and reaffirm it therefore : only make as 
plain 

As that man now lives, that, after dying, man will live 
again, — 450 

Make as plain the absence, also, of a law to con- 
travene 

Voluntary passage from this life to that by change of 
scene, — 

And I bid him — at suspicion of first cloud athwart 
his sky, 

Flower's departure, frost's arrival — never hesitate, 
but die ! 



314 L.(^ Saisiaz 

FANCY 

Then I double my concession : grant, along with new 

life sure 
This same law found lacking now : ordain that, whether 

rich or poor, 
Present life is judged in aught man counts advantage 

— be it hope, 
Be it fear that brightens, blackens most or least his 

horoscope, — 
He, by absolute compulsion such as made him live at all, 
Go on living to the fated end of life whate'er befall. 460 
What though, as on earth he darkling grovels, man 

descry the sphere, 
Next life's — call it, heaven of freedom, close above 

and crystal-clear? 
He shall find — say, hell to punish who in aught 

curtails the term, 
Fain would act the butterfly before he has played out 

the worm ! 
God, soul, earth, heaven, hell, — five facts now : what 

is to desiderate ? 

REASON 

Nothing ! Henceforth man's existence bows to the 

monition " Wait ! 
Take the joys and bear the sorrows — neither with 

extreme concern ! 
Living here means nescience simply : 't is next hfe 

that helps to learn. 
Shut those eyes, next life will open, — stop those ears, 

next life will teach 
Hearing's office, — close those lips, next life will give 

the power of speech ! 470 

Or, if action more amuse thee than the passive 

attitude, 
Bravely bustle through thy being, busy thee for ill or 

good, 
Reap this life's success or failure ! Soon shall things 

be unperplexed 
And the right and wrong, now tangled, lie unravelled 

in the next." 



La Saisiaz 315 

FANCY 

Not so fast ! Still more concession ! not alone do I 
declare 

Life must needs be borne, — I also will that man be- 
come aware 

Life has worth incalculable, every moment that he 
spends 

So much gain or loss for that next life which on this 
life depends. 

Good, done here, be there rewarded, — evil, worked 
here, there amerced ! 

Six facts now, and all established, plain to man the 
last as first. 480 

REASON 

There was good and evil, then, defined to man by this 

decree ? 
Was — for at its promulgation both ahke have ceased 

to be. 
Prior to this last announcement, " Certainly as God 

exists, 
As He made man's soul, as soul is quenchless by the 

deathly mists. 
Yet is, all the same, forbidden premature escape from 

time 
To eternity's provided purer air and brighter clime, — 
Just so certainly depends it on the use to which man 

turns 
Earth, the good or evil done there, whether after death 

he earns 
Life eternal, — heaven, the phrase be, or eternal death, 

— say hell. 
As his deeds, so proves his portion, doing ill or doing 

well ! " 490 

— Prior to this last announcement, earth was man's 

probation-place : 
Liberty of doing evil gave his doing good a grace ; 
Once lay down the law, with Nature's simple " Such 

effects succeed 
Causes such, and heaven or hell depends upon man's 

earthly deed 



3i6 La Saisiaz 

Just as surely as depends the straight or else the 

crooked line 
On his making point meet point or with or else with- 
out indine," — 
Thenceforth neither good nor evil does man, doing 

what he must. 
Lay but down that law as stringent " Wouldst thou 

live again, be just ! " 
As this other " Wouldst thou live now, regularly draw 

thy breath ! 
For, suspend the operation, straight law's breach re- 
sults in death " — 500 
And (provided always, man, addressed this mode, be 

sound and sane) 
Prompt and absolute obedience, never doubt, will law 

obtain ! 
Tell not me " Look round us ! nothing each side but 

acknowledged law, 
Now styled God's — now, Nature's edict ! " Where 's 

obedience without flaw 
Paid to either? What's the adage rife in man's 

mouth ? Why, " The best 
I both feee and praise, the worst I follow" — which, 

despite professed 
Seeing, praising, all the same he follows, since he dis- 
believes 
In the heart of him that edict which for truth his head 

receives. 
There 's evading and persuading and much making law 

amends 
Somehow, there's the nice distinction 'twixt fast foes 
and faulty friends, 510 

— Any consequence except inevitable death when, 

" Die, 
Whoso breaks our law ! " they publish, God and Na- 
ture equally. 
Law that 's kept or broken — subject to man's will and 

pleasure ! Whence ? 
How comes law to bear eluding? Not because of 

impotence : 
Certain laws exist already which to hear means to 
obey; 



La Saisiaz 317 

Therefore not without a purpose these man must, 

while those man may 
Keep and, for the keeping, haply gain approval and 

reward. 
Break through this last superstructure, all is empty air 

— no sward 
Firm like my first fact to stand on, " God there is, and 

soul there is," 
And soul's earthly life-allotment : wherein, by hypoth- 
esis, 520 
Soul is bound to pass probation, prove its powers, and 

exercise 
Sense and thought on fact, and then, from fact educing 

fit surmise, 
Ask itself, and of itself have solely answer, " Does the 

scope 
Earth affords of fact to judge by warrant future fear or 

hope ? " 



Thus have we come back full circle : fancy's footsteps 

one by one 
Go their round, conducting reason to the point where 

they begun. 
Left where we were left so lately. Dear and True ! 

When, half a week 
Since, we walked and talked and thus I told you, how 

suffused a cheek 
You had turned me had I sudden brought the blush 

into the smile 
By some word like " Idly argued ! you know better all 

the while ! " 530 

Now, from me — Oh not a blush, but, how much more, 

a joyous glow, 
Laugh triumphant, would it strike did your " Yes, bet- 
ter I do know " 
Break my warrant for assurance ! which assurance may 

not be 
If, supplanting hope, assurance needs must change 

this Hfe to me. 
So, I hope — no more than hope, but hope, — no less 

than hope, because 



3i8 La Saisiaz 

I can fathonij by no plumb-line sunk in life's apparent 

laws, 
How I may in any instance fix where change should 

meetly fall 
Nor involve, by one revisal, abrogation of them all : 
— Which again involves as utter change in life thus law- 
released, 
Whence the good of goodness vanished when the ill 

of evil ceased. 540 

Whereas, life and laws apparent reinstated, — all we 

know, 
All we know not, — o'er our heaven again cloud 

closes, until, lo, — 
Hope the arrowy, just as constant, comes to pierce its 

gloom, compelled 
By a power and by a purpose which, if no one else 

beheld, 
I behold in life, so — hope ! 

Sad summing-up of all to say! 

Athanasius contra mundimi, why should he hope more 
than they? 

So are men made notwithstanding, such magnetic vir- 
tue darts 

From each head their fancy haloes to their unresisting 
hearts ! 

Here I stand, methinks a stone's throw from yon vil- 
lage I this morn 

Traversed for the sake of looking one last look at its 
forlorn 550 

Tenement's ignoble fortune : through a crevice, plain 
its floor 

Piled with provender for cattle, while a dung-heap 
blocked the door. 

In that squalid Bossex, under that obscene red roof, 
arose, 

Like a fiery flying serpent from its egg, a soul — 
Rousseau's. 

Turn thence ! Is it Diodati joins the glimmer of the 
lake! 

There I plucked a leaf, one week since, — ivy, plucked 
for Byron's sake. 



La Saisias 319 

Famed unfortunates ! And yet, because of that phos- 
phoric fame 
Swathing blackness' self with brightness till putridity 

looked flame, 
All the world was witched : and wherefore ? what 

could lie beneath, allure 
Heart of man to let corruption serve man's head as 

cynosure? 560 

Was the magic in the dictum ''All that 's good is gone 

and past ; 
Bad and worse still grows the present, and the worst 

of all comes last : 
Which believe — for I believe it " ? So preached one 

his gospel-news ; 
While melodious moaned the other, " Dying day with 

dolphin-hues ! 
Storm, for loveliness and darkness like a woman's eye ! 

Ye mounts 
Where I climb to ^scape my fellow, and thou sea 

wherein he counts 
Not one inch of vile dominion! What were your 

especial worth 
Failed ye to enforce the maxim ' Of all objects found 

on earth 
Man is meanest, much too honored when compared 

with — what by odds 
Beats him — any dog : so, let him go a-howling to his 

gods!' 570 

Which believe — for I believe it ! " Such the comfort 

man received 
Sadly since perforce he must; for why? the famous 

bard believed I 

Fame ! Then, give me fame, a moment ! As I 

gather at a glance 
Human glory after glory vivifying yon expanse. 
Let me grasp them altogether, hold on high and 

brandish well 
Beacon-like above the rapt world ready, whether 

heaven or hell 
Send the dazzling summons earthward, to submit itself 

the same, 



320 La Saisiaz 

Take on trust the hope or else despair flashed full on 

face by — Fame ! 
Thanks, thou pine-tree of Makistos, wide thy giant 

torch I wave ! 
Know ye whence I plucked the pillar, late with sky 

for architrave ? 580 

This the trunk, the central solid Knowledge, kindred 

core, began 
Tugging earth-deeps, trying heaven-heights, rooted 

yonder at Lausanne. 
This which flits and spits, the aspic, — sparkles in and 

out the boughs 
Now, and now condensed, the python, coiling round 

and round, allows 
Scarce the bole its due effulgence, dulled by flake on 

flake of Wit — 
Laughter so bejewels Learning, — what but Ferney 

nourished it? 
Nay, nor fear — since every resin feeds the flame — 

that I dispense 
With yon Bossex terebinth-tree's all-explosive Elo- 
quence : 
No, be sure ! nor, any more than thy resplendency, 

Jean-Jacques, 
Dare I want thine, Diodati ! What though monkeys 

and macaques 590 

Gibber " Byron " ? Byron's ivy rears a branch beyond 

the crew, 
Green forever, no deciduous trash macaques and mon- 
keys chew ! 
As Rousseau, then, eloquent, as Byron prime in poet's 

power, — 
Detonations, fulgurations, smiles — the rainbow, tears 

— the shower, — 
Lo, I lift the coruscating marvel — Fame ! and, famed, 

declare 
— Learned for the nonce as Gibbon, witty as wit's self, 

Voltaire . . . 
Oh, the sorriest of conclusions to whatever man of 

sense 
'Mid the millions stands the unit, takes no flare for 

evidence ! 



La Saisiaz 3^1 

Yet the millions have their portion, live their calm or 

troublous day, . 

Find significance in fireworks : so, by help ot mine, 

they may , , • rr° 

Confidently lay to heart and lock m head their life 

long — this: , 

"He there with the brand flamboyant, broad o er 

night's forlorn abyss, , 

Crowned by prose and verse ; and wieldmg, with Wit s 

bauble, Learning's rod " . . . 
Well? Why, he at least beUeved in Soul, was very 

sure of God ! 

So the poor smile played, that evening : pallid smile 

long since extinct 
Here in London's mid-November! Not so loosely 

thoughts were linked, 
Six weeks since as I, descending in the sunset from 

Found the 'chain, I seemed to forge there, flawless till 

it reached your grave, — . . 

Not so filmy was the texture, but I bore it in my 

Safe thus far. And since I found a something in me 
would not rest ".^ ° 

Till I, link by link, unravelled any tangle of the chain, 

— Here it lies, for much or little ! I have lived all o er 
again . , , 

That last pregnant hour : I saved it, just as I could 

save a root . ,^11 

Disinterred for reinterment when the time best helps 

to shoot. ^ 

Life is stocked with germs of torpid life ; but may i 
never wake , 

Those of mine whose resurrection could not be with- 
out earthquake ! „ , • j ,. 

Rest all such, unraised forever! Be this, sad yet 
sweet the sole . 

Memory evoked from slumber ! Least part this : then 
what the whole ? 



2X 



32 2 Epilogue to Poets of Croisic 



EPILOGUE TO THE TWO POETS OF 
CROISIC 

(1878) 

What a pretty tale you told me 
Once upon a time 

— Said you found it somewhere (scold me!) 
Was it prose or was it rhyme, 

Greek or Latin? Greek, you said, 
While your shpulder propped my head. 

Anyhow there 's no forgetting 

This much if no more, 
That a poet (pray, no petting !) 

Yes, a bard, sir, famed of yore, 10 

Went where suchlike used to go, 
Singing for a prize, you know. 

Well, he had to sing, nor merely 

Sing but play the lyre : 
Playing was important clearly 

Quite as singing : I desire, 
Sir, you keep the fact in mind 
For a purpose that 's behind. 

There stood he, while deep attention 

Held the judges round, 20 

— Judges able, I should mention. 
To detect the slightest sound 

Sung or played amiss : such ears 
Had old judges, it appears ! 

None the less he sang out boldly, 

Played in time and tune, 
Till the judges, weighing coldly 

Each note's worth, seemed, late or soon, 
Sure to smile " In vain one tries 
Picking faults out : take the prize ! " 30 



Epilogue to Poets of Croisic 323 

When, a mischief ! Were they seven 

Strings the lyre possessed? 
Oh, and afterwards eleven, 

Thank you ! Well, sir, — who had guessed 
Such ill luck in store ? — it happed 
One of those same seven strings snapped. 

All was lost, then ! No ! a cricket 

(What " cicada ? " Pooh!) 
— Some mad thing that left its thicket 

For mere love of music — flew 4° 

With its little heart on fire, 
Lighted on the crippled lyre. 

So that when (Ah, joy !) our singer 

For his truant string 
Feels with disconcerted finger, 

What does cricket else but fling 
Fiery heart forth, sound the note 
Wanted by the throbbing throat? 

Ay and, ever to the ending, 

Cricket chirps at need, 5° 

Executes the hand's intending, 

Promptly, perfectly, — indeed, 
Saves the singer from defeat 
With her chirrup low and sweet. 

Till, at ending, all the judges 

Cry with one assent : 
"Take the prize — a prize who grudges 

Such a voice and instrument ? 
Why, we took your lyre for harp, 
So it shrilled us forth F sharp ! " 60 

Did the conqueror spurn the creature, 

Once its service done? 
That 's no such uncommon feature 

In the case when Music's son 
Finds his Lotte's power too spent 
For aiding soul-development. 



324 Epilogue to Poets of Croisic 

No ! This other, on returning 

Homeward, prize in hand, 
Satisfied his bosom's yearning : 

(Sir, I hope you understand !) 70 

— Said " Some record there must be 
Of this cricket's help to me ! " 

So, he made himself a statue : 

Marble stood, life-size ; 
On the lyre, he pointed at you, 

Perched his partner in the prize ; 
Never more apart you found 
Her, he throned, from him, she crowned. 

That 's the tale : its application ? 

Somebody I know 80 

Hopes one day for reputation 

Through his poetry that 's — Oh, 
All so learned and so wise 
And deserving of a prize ! 

If he gains one, will some ticket, 

When his statue 's built, 
. Tell the gazer " 'T was a cricket 

Helped my crippled lyre, whose lilt, 
Sweet and low, when strength usurped 
Softness' place i' the scale, she chirped ? 90 

" For as victory was nighest, 

While I sang and played, — 
With my lyre at lowest, highest. 

Right alike, — one string that made 
'■ Love ' sound soft was snapt in twain. 
Never to be heard again, — 

" Had not a kind cricket fluttered, 

Perched upon the place 
Vacant left, and duly uttered 

'Love, Love, Love,' whene'er the bass 100 
Asked the treble to atone 
For its somewhat sombre drone." 



P heidippides 325 

But you don't know music ! Wherefore 

Keep on casting pearls 
To a — poet ? All I care for 

Is — to tell him that a girl's 
" Love " comes aptly in when gruff 
Grows his singing. (There, enough !) 



PHEIDIPPIDES 
(1879) 

Xai'perf, viKwfiep. 

First I salute this soil of the blessed, river and rock ! 

Gods of my birthplace, daemons and heroes, honor to 
all! 

Then I name thee, claim thee for our patron, co-equal 
in praise 

— Ay, with Zeus the Defender, with Her of the segis 
and spear ! 

Also, ye of the bow and the buskin, praised be your 
peer. 

Now, henceforth and forever, — O latest to whom I 
upraise 

Hand and heart and voice ! For Athens, leave pas- 
ture and flock ! 

Present to help, potent to save. Pan — patron I call ! 

Archons of Athens, topped by the tettix, see, I 

return ! 
See, 't is myself here standing alive, no spectre that 

speaks! 10 

Crowned with the myrtle, did you command me, 

Athens and you, 
" Run, Pheidippides, run and race, reach Sparta for 

aid! 
Persia has come, we are here, where is She?" Your 

command I obeyed, 
Ran and raced : like stubble, some field which a fire 

runs through, 



326 Pheidipp ides 

Was the space between city and city : two days, two 

nights did I burn 
Over the hills, under the dales, down pits and up peaks. 

Into their midst I broke : breath served but for 

" Persia has come ! 
Persia bids Athens proffer slaves'-tribute, water and 

earth ; 
Razed to the ground is Eretria — but Athens, shall 

Athens sink, 
Drop into dust and die — the flower of Hellas utterly 

die, 20 

Die, with the wide world spitting at Sparta, the stupid, 

the stander-by? 
Answer me quick, what help, what hand do you 

stretch o'er destruction's brink? 
How, — when ? No care for my limbs ! — there 's 

lightning in all and some — 
Fresh and fit your message to bear, once lips give it 

birth ! " 



O my Athens — Sparta love thee ? Did Sparta re- 
spond ? 

Every face of her leered in a furrow of envy, mistrust, 

Malice, — each eye of her gave me its glitter of grati- 
fied hate ! 

Gravely they turned to take counsel, to cast for ex- 
cuses. I stood 

Quivering, — the Hmbs of me fretting as fire frets, an 
inch from dry wood : 

" Persia has come, Athens asks aid, and still they 
debate ? 30 

Thunder, thou Zeus ! Athene, are Spartans a quarry 
beyond 

Swing of thy spear? Phoibos and Artemis, clang 
them ' Ye must ' ! " 

No bolt launched from Olumpos ! Lo, their answer 

at last ! 
" Has Persia come, — does Athens ask aid, — may 

Sparta befriend ? 



Pheidippides 327 

Nowise precipitate judgment — too weighty the issue 
at stake ! 

Count we no time lost time which lags through re- 
spect to the gods ! 

Ponder that precept of old, ' No warfare, whatever 
the odds 

In your favor, so long as the moon, half-orbed, is 
unable to take 

Full-circle her state in the sky ! ' Already she rounds 
to it fast : 

Athens must wait, patient as we — who judgment 
suspend." 40 

Athens, — except for that sparkle, — thy name, I had 

mouldered to ash! 
That sent a blaze through my blood ; off, off and away 

was I back, 
— Not one word to waste, one look to lose on the 

false and the vile ! 
Yet "O gods of my land! " I cried, as each hillock 

and plain, 
Wood and stream, I knew, I named, rushing past 

them again, 
" Have ye kept faith, proved mindful of honors we 

paid you erewhile? 
Vain was the filleted victim, the fulsome libation ! 

Too rash 
Love in its choice, paid you so largely service so slack ! 

"■ Oak and olive and bay, — I bid you cease to en- 
wreathe 

Brows made bold by your leaf! Fade at the Persian's 
foot, 50 

You that, our patrons were pledged, should never 
adorn a slave ! 

Rather I hail thee, Parnes, — trust to thy wild waste 
tract ! 

Treeless, herbless, lifeless mountain ! What matter if 
slacked 

My speed may hardly be, for homage to crag and to 
cave 



328 P heidippides 

No deity deigns to drape with verdure ? at least I can 

breathe, 
Fear in thee no fraud from the Wind, no lie from the 

mute ! " 



Such my cry as, rapid, I ran over Fames' ridge ; 
Gully and gap I clambered and cleared till, sudden, a 

bar 
Jutted, a stoppage of stone against me, blocking the way. 
Right ! for I minded the hollow to traverse, the fissure 

across : 60 

" Where I could enter, there I depart by ! Night in 

the fosse ? 
Athens to aid? Though the dive were through 

Erebos, thus I obey — 
Out of the day dive, into the day as bravely arise ! 

No bridge 
Better!" — when — ha! what was it I came on, of 

wonders that are ? 

There, in the cool of a cleft, sat he — majestical Pan ! 
Ivy drooped wanton, kissed his head, moss cushioned 

his hoof: 
All the great god was good in the eyes grave-kindly — 

the curl 
Carved on the bearded cheek, amused at a mortal's 

awe. 
As, under the human trunk, the goat-thighs grand I 

saw. 
" Halt, Pheidippides ! " — halt I did, my brain of a 

whirl : 70 

''Hither to me! Why pale in my presence?" he 

gracious began : 
" How is it, — Athens, only in Hellas, holds me aloof ? 

" Athens, she only, rears me no fane, makes me no 

feast ! 
Wherefore? Than I what godship to Athens more 

helpful of old ? 
Ay, and still, and forever her friend ! Test Pan, trust 

me ! 



Pheidippides 329 

Go, bid Athens take heart, laugh Persia to scorn, have 

faith 
In the temples and tombs ! Go, say to Athens, 'The 

Goat-God saith : 
When Persia — so much as strews not the soil — is 

cast in the sea, 
Then praise Pan who fought in the ranks with your 

most and least. 
Goat-thigh to greaved-thigh, made one cause with the 

free and the bold ! ' 80 

" Say Pan saith : ' Let this, foreshowing the place, be 
the pledge ! ' " 

(Gay, the liberal hand held out this herbage I bear 

Fennel I grasped it a-tremble with dew — what- 
ever it bode) 

"While, as for thee" ... But enough! He was 
gone. If I ran hitherto — 

Be sure that, the rest of my journey, I ran no longer, 
but flew. 

Parnes to Athens — earth no more, the air was my road : 

Here am I back. Praise Pan, we stand no more on 
the razor's edge ! 

Pan for Athens, Pan for me ! I too have a guerdon 
rare ! 

Then spoke Miltiades. "And thee, best runner of 

Whose hmbs did duty indeed, — what gift is promised 

thyself? , 9° 

Tell it us straightway, — Athens the mother demands 

of her son ! " 
Rosily blushed the youth : he paused : but, liftmg at 

length 
His eyes from the ground, it seemed as he gathered 

the rest of his strength 
Into the utterance — " Pan spoke thus: 'For what 

thou hast done 
Count on a worthy reward ! Henceforth be allowed 

thee release 
From the racer's toil, no vulgar reward in praise or in 

pelf!' 



330 P heidippides 

" I am bold to believe, Pan means reward the most to 

my mind ! 
Fight I shall, with our foremost, wherever this fennel 

may grow, — 
Pound — Pan helping us — Persia to dust, and, under 

the deep. 
Whelm her away forever ; and then, — no Athens to 

save, — I GO 

Marry a certain maid, I know keeps faith to the 

brave, — 
Hie to my house and home : and, when my children 

shall creep 
Close to my knees, — recount how the God was 

awful yet kind, 
Promised their sire reward to the full — rewarding 

him — so ! " 

Unforeseeing one ! Yes, he fought on the Marathon 

day : 
So, when Persia was dust, all cried " To Akropolis ! 
Run, Pheidippides, one race more ! the need is thy 

due ! 
' Athens is saved, thank Pan,' go shout ! " He flung 

down his shield, 
Ran like fire once more: and the space 'twixt the 

Fennel-field 
And Athens was stubble again, a field which a fire 

runs through, no 

Till in he broke : " Rejoice, we conquer ! " Like 

wine through clay, 
Joy in his blood bursting his heart, he died — - the 

bliss ! 

So, to this day, when friend meets friend, the word of 
salute 

Is still " Rejoice ! " — his word which brought re- 
joicing indeed. 

So is Pheidippides happy forever, — the noble strong 
man 

Who could race like a god, bear the face of a god, 
whom a god loved so well ; 



Muleykeh 331 

He saw the land saved he had helped to save, and 

was suffered to tell 
Such tidings, yet never decline, but, gloriously as he 

began. 
So to end gloriously — once to shout, thereafter be 

mute : 
" Athens is saved ! " — Pheidippides dies in the shout 

for his meed. 120 



MULEYKEH 

(1880) 

If a stranger passed the tent of Hdseyn, he cried 
" A churl's ! " 

Or haply " God help the man who has neither salt nor 
bread!" 

— " Nay," would a friend exclaim, " he needs nor 
pity nor scorn 

More than who spends small thought on the shore- 
sand, picking pearls, 

— Holds but in light esteem the seed-sort, bears instead 

On his breast a moon-like prize, some orb which of 
night makes morn. 

"What if no flocks and herds enrich the son of Sinan? 
They went when his tribe was mulct, ten thousand 

camels the due. 
Blood-value paid perforce for a murder done of old. 
* God gave them, let them go ! But never since time 

began, 10 

Muleykeh, peerless mare, owned master the match of 

you, 
And you are my prize, my Pearl : I laugh at men's 

land and gold ! ' 

" So in the pride of his soul laughs Hdseyn — and 

right, I say. 
Do the ten steeds run a race of glory ? Outstripping 

all, 



332 Muleykeh 

Ever Muleykeh stands first steed at the victor's staff. 
Who started, the owner's hope, gets shamed and named, 

that day. 
' Silence,' or, last but one, is ' The Cuffed,' as we use 

to call 
Whom the paddock's lord thrusts forth. Right, 

Hdseyn, I say, to laugh ! " 

''Boasts he Muleykeh the Pearl?" the stranger re- 
plies : " Be sure 

On him I waste nor scorn nor pity, but lavish both 20 

On Duhl the son of Sheyban, who withers away in 
heart 

For envy of Hdseyn's luck. Such sickness admits no 
cure. 

A certain poet has sung, and sealed the same with an 
oath, 

'■ For the vulgar — flocks and herds ! The Pearl is a 
prize apart.' " 

Lo, Duhl the son of SheybAn comes riding to H6seyn's 

tent. 
And he casts his saddle down, and enters and 

'' Peace ! " bids he. 
'' You are poor, I know the cause : my plenty shall 

mend the wrong. 
'T is said of your Pearl — the price of a hundred 

camels spent 
In her purchase were scarce ill paid : such prudence 

is far from me 
Who proffer a thousand. Speak ! Long parley may 

last too long." 30 

Said Hdseyn, "You feed young beasts a many, of 

famous breed, 
Slit-eared, unblemished, fat, true offspring of Miizen- 

nem : 
There stumbles no weak-eyed she in the line as it 

climbs the hill. 
But I love Mule'ykeh's face : her forefront whitens 

indeed 



Muleykeh 333 

Like a yellowish wave's cream-crest. Your camels — ■ 

go gaze on them ! 

Her fetlock is foam-splashed too. Myself am the 

richer still." 

A year goes by : lo, back to the tent again rides Duhl. 
" You are open-hearted, ay — moist-handed, a very 

prince. 
Why should I speak of sale ? Be the mare your simple 

gift ! 
My son is pined to death for her beauty : my wife 

prompts '■ Fool, 40 

Beg for his sake the Pearl ! Be God the rewarder, 

since 
God pays debts seven for one : who squanders on Him 

shows thrift' " 

Said Hdseyn, " God gives each man one life, like a 
lamp, then gives 

That lamp due measure of oil : lamp lighted — hold 
high, wave wide 

Its comfort for others to share ! once quench it, what 
help is left? 

The oil of your lamp is your son : I shine while 
Muleykeh lives. 

Would I beg your son to cheer my dark if MuMykeh 
died? 

It is life against life : what good avails to the life- 
bereft?" 

Another year, and — hist! What craft is it Duhl 
designs ? 

He alights not at the door of the tent as he did last 
time, 50 

But, creeping behind, he gropes his stealthy way by 
the trench 

Half-round till he finds the flap in the folding, for 
night combines 

With the robber — and such is he : Duhl, covetous 
up to crime, 

Must wring from H6seyn's grasp the Pearl, by what- 
ever the wrench. 



334 Muleykeh 

" He was hunger-bitten, I heard : I tempted with half 

my store, 
And "a gibe was all my thanks. Is he generous like 

Spring dew? 
Account the fault to me who chaffered with such an 

one ! 
He has killed, to feast chance comers, the creature he 

rode : nay, more — 
For a couple of singing-girls his robe has he torn in 

two : 
I will beg ! Yet I nowise gained by the tale of my 

wife and son. 60 

" I swear by the Holy House, my head will I never 

wash 
Till I filch his Pearl away. Fair dealing I tried, then 

guile, 
And now I resort to force. He said we must live or 

die : 
Let him die, then, — let me live ! Be bold — but not 

too rash ! 
I have found me a peeping-place : breast, bury your 

breathing while 
I explore for myself ! Now, breathe ! He deceived 

me not, the spy ! 

" As he said — there lies in peace H6seyn — how 

happy ! Beside 
Stands tethered the Pearl : thrice winds her headstall 

about his wrist : 
'Tis therefore he sleeps so sound — the moon through 

the roof reveals. 
And, loose on his left, stands too that other, known far 

and wide, 70 

Buheyseh, her sister born : fleet is she yet ever missed 
The winning tail's fire-flash a-stream past the 

thunderous heels. 

" No less she stands saddled and bridled, this second, 

in case some thief 
Should enter and seize and fly with the first, as I 

mean to do. 



Muleykeh 335 

What then? The Pearl is the Pearl : once mount her 
we both escape." 

Through the skirt-fold in glides Duhl, — so a serpent 
disturbs no leaf 

In a bush as he parts the twigs entwining a nest : clean 
through, 

He is noiselessly at his work : as he planned, he per- 
forms the rape. 

He has set the tent-door wide, has buckled the girth, 

has cHpped 
The headstall away from the wrist he leaves thrice 

bound as before, 80 

He springs on the Pearl, is launched on the desert 

like bolt from bow. 
Up starts our plundered man : from his breast though 

the heart be ripped. 
Yet his mind has the mastery : behold, in a minute 

more. 
He is out and off and away on Buh^yseh, whose worth 

we know! 

And Hoseyn — his blood turns flame, he has learned 

long since to ride, 
And Buh^yseh does her part, — they gain — they are 

gaining fast 
On the fugitive pair, and Duhl has Ed-Darraj to cross 

and quit, 
And to reach the ridge El-Saban, — no safety till that 

be spied! 
And Buh^yseh is, bound by bound, but a horse-length 

off at last, 
For the Pearl has missed the tap of the heel, the touch 

of the bit. 90 

She shortens her stride, she chafes at her rider the 

strange and queer : 
Buh^yseh is mad with hope — beat sister she shall and 

must, 
Though Duhl, of the hand and heel so clumsy, she 

has to thank. 
She is near now, nose by tail — they are neck by croup 

— joy ! fear ! 



336 Muleykeh 

What folly makes Hoseyn shout " Dog Duhl, Damned 

son of the Dust, 
Touch the right ear and press with your foot my 

Pearl's left flank ! " 

And Duhl was wise at the word, and Muleykeh as 
prompt perceived 

Who was urging redoubled pace, and to hear him was 
to obey, 

And a leap indeed gave she, and evanished forever- 
more. 

And Hoseyn looked one long last look as who, all 
bereaved, 100 

Looks, fain to follow the dead so far as the living may : 

Then he turned Buh^yseh's neck slow homeward, 
weeping sore. 

And, lo, in the sunrise, still sat Hoseyn upon the 

ground 
Weeping : and neighbors came, the tribesmen of Benu- 

Asad 
In the vale of green Er-Rass, and they questioned 

him of his grief; 
And he told from first to last how, serpent-like, Duhl 

had wound 
His way to the nest, and how Duhl rode like an ape, 

so bad ! 
And how Buh^yseh did wonders, yet Pearl remained 

with the thief 

And they jeered him, one and all : " Poor Hoseyn is 

crazed past hope ! 
How else had he wrought himself his ruin, in fortune's 

spite? no 

To have simply held the tongue were a task for boy or 

girl 
And here were Mul^yekh again, the eyed like an 

antelope, 
The child of his heart by day, the wife of his breast by 

night ! " — 
" And the beaten in speed ! " wept Hoseyn. 

" You never have loved my Pearl." 



Wanting is — What? 337 



EPILOGUE TO DRAMATIC IDYLS 
SECOND SERIES 

(1880) 

" Touch him ne'er so lightly, into song he broke : 
Soil so quick-receptive, — not one feather-seed, 
Not one flower-dust fell but straight its fall awoke 
Vitalizing virtue : song would song succeed 
Sudden as spontaneous — prove a poet-soul ! " 

Indeed? 
Rock 's the song-soil rather, surface hard and bare : 
Sun and dew their mildness, storm and frost their rage 
Vainly both expend, — few flowers awaken there : 
Quiet in its cleft broods — what the after-age 
Knows and names a pine, a nation's heritage. 10 



WANTING IS — WHAT? 
(1883) 

Wanting is — what ? 

Summer redundant, 

Blueness abundant, 

— Where is the blot ? 
Beamy the world, yet a blank all the same, 
■ — Framework which waits for a picture to frame : 
What of the leafage, what of the flower ? 
Roses embowering with naught they embower ! 
Come then, complete incompletion, O comer, 
Pant through the blueness, perfect the summer ! 

Breathe but one breath 

Rose-beauty above, 

And all that was death 

Grows life, grows love, 

Grows love ! 



338 Epilogue to FerishtaJis Fancies 

NEVER THE TIME AND THE PLACE 

(1883) 

Never the time and the place 

And the loved one all together ! 
This path — how soft to pace ! 

This May — what magic weather! 
Where is the loved one's face? 
In a dream that loved one's face meets mine, 

But the house is narrow, the place is bleak 
Where, outside, rain and wind combine 

With a furtive ear, if I strive to speak, 

With a hostile eye at my flushing cheek, 10 

With a malice that marks each word, each sign! 
O enemy sly and serpentine. 

Uncoil thee from the waking man ! 
Do I hold the Past 
Thus firm and fast 

Yet doubt if the Future hold I can? 

This path so soft to pace shall lead 

Through the magic of May to herself indeed ! 

Or narrow if needs the house must be, 

Outside are the storm and strangers : we — 20 

Oh, close, safe, warm sleep I and she, 
— I and she ! 



EPILOGUE TO FERISHTAH'S FANCIES 

(1884) 

Oh, Love — no. Love ! All the noise below, Love, 
Groanings all and moanings — none of Life I lose ! 

All of Life 's a cry just of weariness and woe, Love — 
" Hear at least, thou happy one 1 " How can I, 
Love, but choose ? 



Epilogue to Ferishtali s Fancies 339 

Only, when I do hear, sudden circle round me 

— Much as when the moon's might frees a space 
from cloud — 
Iridescent splendors : gloom — would else confound 
me — 
Barriered off and banished far — bright-edged the 
blackest shroud ! 

Thronging through the cloud-rift, whose are they, the 
faces 
Faint revealed yet sure divined, the famous ones of 
old ? 10 

"What" — they smile — "our names, our deeds so 
soon erases 
Time upon his tablet where Life's glory lies en- 
rolled? 

" Was it for mere fool's-play, make-believe and mum- 
ming, 
So we battled it like men, not boylike sulked or 
whined ? 
Each of us heard clang God's ' Come ! ' and each was 
coming : 
Soldiers all, to forward-face, not sneaks to lag be- 
hind ! 

" How of the field's fortune ? That concerned our 
Leader ! 
Led, we struck our stioke nor cared for doings left 
and right : 
Each as on his sole head, failer or succeeder, 

Lay the blame or lit the praise : no care for cowards : 
fight!" 20 

Then the cloud-rift broadens, spanning earth that's 
under, 
Wide our world displays its worth, man's strife and 
strife's success ; 
All the good and beauty, wonder crowning wonder, 
Till my heart and soul applaud perfection, nothing 
less. 



340 Prologue to Asolando 

Only, at heart's utmost joy and triumph, terror 

Sudden turns the blood to ice : a chill wind disen- 
charms 
All the late enchantment ! What if all be error — 
If the halo irised round my head were, Love, thine 
arms? 

Palazzo Giustinian-Recanti, 
Venice, December i, 1883. 



PROLOGUE TO ASOLANDO 

(1889) 

" The Poet's age is sad : for why ? 

In youth, the natural world could show 
No common object but his eye 

At once involved with ahen glow — 
His own soul's iris-bow. 

" And now a flower is just a flower : 

Man, bird, beast are but beast, bird, man — 

Simply themselves, uncinct by dower 
Of dyes which, when life's day began, 

Round each in glory ran." 10 

Friend, did you need an optic glass, 

Which were your choice? A lens to drape 

In ruby, emerald, chrysopras, 

Each object — or reveal its shape 

Clear outlined, past escape. 

The naked very thing ? — so clear 

That, when you had the chance to gaze, 

You found its inmost self appear 

Through outer seeming — truth ablaze. 

Not falsehood's fancy-haze ? 20 

How many a year, my A solo, 

Since — one step just from sea to land — 
I found you, loved yet feared you so — 

For natural objects seemed to stand 
Palpably fire-clothed ! No — 



Prologue to Asolando 341 

No mastery of mine o'er these ! 

Terror with beauty, like the Bush 
Burning but unconsumed. Bend knees, 

Drop eyes to earthward ! Language ? Tush ! 
Silence 't is awe decrees. 30 

And now ? The lambent flame is — where ? 

Lost from the naked world : earth, sky, 
Hill, vale, tree, flower, — Italia's rare 

O'er-running beauty crowds the eye — 
But flame ? The Bush is bare. 

Hill, vale, tree, flower — they stand distinct, 
Nature to know and name. What then ? 

A Voice spoke thence which straight unlinked 
Fancy from fact : see, all 's in ken : 

Has once my eyelid winked ? 40 

No, for the purged ear apprehends 

Earth's import, not the eye late dazed. 
The Voice said, " Call my works thy friends ! 

At Nature dost thou shrink amazed? 
God is it who transcends." 

AsoLO, September 6, 1S89. 



342 Summuni Bonum 

POETICS 



" So say the foolish ! " Say the foolish so, Love ? 
" Flower she is, my rose " — or else, " My very 
swan is she " — 
Or perhaps, " Yon maid-moon, blessing earth below, 
Love, 
That art thou ! " — to them, belike : no such vain 
words from me. 

" Hush, rose, blush ! no balm like breath," I chide 
it: 
" Bend thy neck its best, swan, — hers the whiter 
curve ! " 
Be the moon the moon : my Love I place beside it : 
What is she ? Her human self, — no lower word 
will serve. 



SUMMUM BONUM 
(1889) 

All the breath and the bloom of the year in the bag of 
one bee : 
All the wonder and wealth of the mine in the heart 
of one gem : 
In the core of one pearl all the shade and the shine of 
the sea: 
Breath and bloom, shade and shine, — wonder, 
wealth, and — how far above them — 
Truth, that 's brighter than gem. 
Trust, that 's purer than pearl, — 
Brightest truth, purest trust in the universe — all were 
for me 

In the kiss of one girl. 



speculative 343 

A PEARL, A GIRL 

(1 889) 

A simple ring with a single stone, 
To the vulgar eye no stone of price : 

Whisper the right word, that alone — 
Forth starts a sprite, like fire fi-om ice. 

And lo, you are lord (says an Eastern scroll 

Of heaven and earth, lord whole and sole 
Through the power in a pearl. 

A woman ('t is I this time that say) 

With little the world counts worthy praise : 

Utter the true word — out and away 10 

Escapes her soul : I am wrapt in blaze, 

Creation's lord, of heaven and earth 

Lord whole and sole — by a minute's birth — 
Through the love in a girl ! 



SPECULATIVE 



Others may need new life in Heaven — 
Man, Nature, Art — made new, assume ! 

Man with wq-^ mind old sense to leaven. 
Nature, — new light to clear old gloom, 

Art that breaks bounds, gets soaring-room. 

I shall pray : " Fugitive as precious — 
Minutes which passed, — return, remain ! 

Let earth's old life once more enmesh us, 
You with old pleasure, me — old pain, 

So we but meet nor part again ! " 



344 Epilogue to Asolando 

EPILOGUE TO ASOLANDO 
(1889) 

At the midnight in the silence of the sleep-time, 

When you set your fancies free, 
Will they pass to where — by death, fools think, 

imprisoned — 
Low he lies who once so loved you, whom you loved 
so, 

— Pity me ? 

Oh to love so, be so loved, yet so mistaken ! 

What had I on earth to do 
With the slothful, with the mawkish, the unmanly? 
Like the aimless, helpless, hopeless, did I drivel 

— Being — who? 10 

One who never turned his back but marched breast 
forward, 
Never doubted clouds would break, 
Never dreamed, though right were worsted, wrong 

would triumph, 
Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better, 
Sleep to wake. 

No, at noonday in the bustle of man's work-time 

Greet the unseen with a cheer ! 
Bid him forward, breast and back as either should be, 
" Strive and thrive ! " cry " Speed, — fight on, fare 
ever 

There as here ! " 20 



NOTES 



First Period :-i 841 



Robert Browning was born May 7, 18 12. It is not with- 
out its significance that this poet, in whom was 

A principle of restlessness, 
Which would be all, have, see, know, taste, feel, all, 

should have been born, like his great predecessor, Milton, in the 
busy metropolis of London, and of an ancestry which united 
taste and refinement with the ordinary activities of men of busi- 
ness His home influences were in many respects like those ot 
Milton two centuries earlier, and like Milton he was ever ready 
in later life to pay tribute to the father's self-sacrifice and the 
mother's tender and sympathetic guidance. Living at Cam- 
berwell a suburb of London, he was not deprived of nature s 
attractions in rivers, woods, and hills, while enjoying the sights 
and sounds of the busy haunts of men. Nature and human 
life thus came to be of interest to him almost simultaneously 
with the arts of poetry, painting, and music. It is "o^^'o^der 
that under the influences of such an environment, the child 
came to live in dreams. He was educated at home, in music, 
singing, dancing, boxing, riding, and fencing, until he was ten 
years of age, when he was placed in a day school at Peckham, 
where he remained until he was fourteen. During these days 
he seemed more in love with nature than with books. He be- 
gan to seek melodious expression for his feelings, sometimes 
after the manner of Pope, but oftener in a Byronic vem. His 
father, fearing the results of such a revolutionary spirit, often 
inveighed against the temper of this "new fangled Byron. 
When only twelve, Browning gave his mother some manuscript 
ballads for which he had failed to find a publisher, and she 
with a true motherly instinct showed them to some friends, who 
detected the latent poetic fervor in them. These manuscripts 
came into possession of Mr. W. J. Fox, " who thought, says 
Mr Edmund Gosse, "that his verse was so full and melodious 



346 



Notes 



his snare would be a too gorgeous scale of language and tenu- 
ity of thought, concealed by metrical audacity." Soon after, 
he came under the spell of the " Sun-treader " Shelley, much 
as about the same time the young Tennyson did under tlie 
wizard fascination of Byron. His mother bought for him a 
pirated volume of Shelley's Queen Mab and Other Poems, and 
one of Keats. Soon after this, as he said, "two nightingales 
strove one against the other," and he became possessed of the 
spirits of these romancers. 

After completing his studies at the school he remained at 
home with a tutor, and fed his appetite on history, poetry, 
music, and experimental science. In Panliiie he said, while 
looking back to these days : 

So, as I grew, I rudely shaped my life 

To my immediate wants ; yet strong beneath 

Was a vague sense of power, though folded up — 

A sense that, though those shades and times were past, 

Their spirit dwelt in me, with them should rule. 

He attended lectures at London University for a short time, 
and then began that study in the greater University of men 
and things through travel. He was twenty, and had already 
planned " a series of monodramatic epics, narratives of the 
lives of typical souls," — the vein which he worked so assidu- 
ously and successfully through life. His first production in this 
line was Pauline ; A Fragment of a Confession, a poem so 
full of autobiographical pictures that we have selected parts of 
it by which to introduce the student to his mind and art. It 
was published anonymously in 1833, when he was twenty-one 
years of age, and the expense of printing was borne by his 
aunt. How little it attracted readers of poetry is revealed 
in the fact that it was not republished until 1868. It presents 
man thinking in monologue, his earliest " attempt at poetry 
always dramatic in principle," in contrast to Shakespeare, who 
presents man acting and revealing himself in dialogue. It is 
the confession of a youth of noble ideals, but weak in will. 
In its somewhat morbid exaggeration it resembles Byron, " a 
healthy morbidity : a kind of intellectual measles," says Mr. 
Chesterton ; while in its picturesque elements and sensuous- 
ness it suggests Shelley. 



Pages 1-3] NotcS 347 



PAULINE 

1833 

A Reflection 

The two great questions in regard to the mind and art of a 
poet are, What is his attitude toward nature on the one hand, 
and, on the other hand, what is his revelation of human life ? 
In some poets these questions are not answered definitely in 
their earlier work, there are only hints ; but with Browning, 
as with Wordsworth, we have a clear revelation of both, — 
what may be called the Theine. 

In this "reilection" we have a miniature landscape from 
memory, a revelation merely of what sight revealed to him. 
It is a brief, vivid, and fresh bit of painting, something to 
be enjoyed for itself; and yet it contains a suggestive sym- 
bolism of the awakening consciousness in his own heart to 
high ideals, — the advent of Spring in his soul, somewhat after 
the manner of Shelley. 

His Early Ideal 

11. i-io. Here is a very marked illustration of the matu- 
rity of thought in the young poet, not unlike that to be found 
in Wordsworth's Thitern Abbey. 

1. II, etc. It is not to be wondered at that the ideals of 
Shelley, the apostle of a new era for man, clothed in radiant 
song, should touch the emotional and imaginative nature of 
this sensitive youth. Shelley is the poet of youth. He is a 
revealer of the aspiration, the rapture, the beauty, and the 
pleasures of youth. When he deals with the problems which 
belong to age, when he observes and meditates, he lacks 
reality and balance. This praise of his young ideal — the 
sacred spring which brought the spirit of revolt, new vigor, 
and new enthusiasm — suggests the tributes of other young 
poets to their inspirers, especially that of Tennyson to Byron : 

The hero and the bard is gone. 

Tennyson once wrote to James Spedding: "Byron and Shel- 
ley, however mistaken they may be, did yet give the world 
another heart and new pulses, and so are we kept going. 
Blessed be those who grease the wheels of the old world, 
inasmuch as to move on is better than to stand still." 



348 



Notes [Pages 3-5 



The treatment of nature here, too, is marked by that ex- 
uberance of thought and feeling in relation to man which is 
of youth. 

Regarding the influence of Shelley in the genesis oi Pauline, 
the Monthly Repository published the following happy con- 
ceit, based upon the fact that Browning loaned his copy of 
Shelley's Rosalijtd and Helen to Miss Flower, who lost it in a 

wood. " Last autumn L dropped a poem of Shelley's down 

there in the wood amongst the thick, damp, rotting leaves, 
and this spring someone found a delicate exotic-looking plant 
growing wild on the very spot, with Pauline hanging from its 
slender stock." Cf. Memorabilia. 

A Revelation 

To catch the significance of these few lines is to get near 
to Browning's fundamental idea of personality, the power of 
a true life through the use of that supreme intellectual faculty, 
— the imagination. 

Professor Dowden says of Pauline : " Rarely does a poem 
by a writer so young deserve better to be read for its own 
sake. It is an interesting document in the history of its 
author's mind." 

Imaginative Delight 

This is a bit of philosophy to be found everywhere in 
Wordsworth — especially in T/ie Prelude — the influence of 
early environment with books and nature. 

Our childhood sits, 
Our simple childhood sits upon a throne 
That hath more power than all the elements. 

Prelude, v, 507-50S. 

It is a tribute to the wisdom of his parents, who created 
such a wholesome atmosphere for his imagination, in ballad, 
epic, and chronicle. When, in later life, some one said to him, 
" There is no romance now except in Italy," he replied, " Well, 
I should make an exception of Camberwell ; " such were his 
memories of youth. 

A Crisis 

Here the intellectual search of the student stifles the 
higher imaginative powers, as was the case with Wordsworth 
when, in the disappointment at the course of the French Rev- 
olution, he took to studying forms of Government. 



Pages 5-7] NoteS . 349 

Demanding formal proof, 
And seeking it in everything. I lost 
All feeling of conviction, and, in fine, 
Sick, wearied out with contrarieties, 
Yielded up moral questions in despair. 

Prelude, xi. 301 -30 5. 

Tennyson had a similar experience in hi Memoriam : 

I will not shut me from my kind, 

And lest I stiffen into stone 
I will not eat my heart alone 

Nor feed with sighs a passing wind. 

Recovery 

Renewal of faith comes through new and unselfish activi- 
ties, as was the case with Wordsworth when his sister led him 
back to the love of rivers, woods, and hills, and through that to 
the love of God and humanity. Here the teaching of Pauline 
reveals how 

Men may rise on stepping stones of their dead selves to higher 
things. 

Of Paulitte he wrote to a friend, when republishing it in 
1868 ; " The only remaining crab of the shapely Tree of 
Life in my Fool's Paradise." Mr. Stopford Brooke says of 
Pauline : " Out of the same quarry from which Pauline was 
hewn the rest were hewn. . . . Few have been so consistent 
as Browning, few so true to their early inspiration." 

Some early reviews of Pauline remind us of those of Jeffrey 
on Wordsworth. The Literary Gazette, March, 1833, said : 
" This is a dreary volume, without an object, and unfit for 
publication." Tait's Edinburgh Magazine, August, 1833, said : 
"A piece of pure bewilderment." 



PARACELSUS 

1835 

Pauline made but little stir in the literary world of its day, 
although it attracted a few of the poet's personal friends. 
Mr. W. J. Fox, editor of the Monthly Repository, was the 
earliest of Browning's sympathetic critics, and to him the poet 
owed much. That the poem attracted so few seems the 
more surprising when we consider that hardly any first pub- 
lication of an English poet revealed so much of promise. 



350 Notes [pages 7-9 

Soon after Pauline was given to the world, Browning visited 
St. Petersburg for a time with the Russian Consul-General. 
He returned to England early in 1834 with this thought in 

his heart : 

Oh to be in England, 
Now that April 's there ! 

and during the fall and winter he wrote Paracelsus, which was 
published in the summer of 1835 at his father's expense. What 
he had somewhat roughly sketched in Pauline in regard to 
man, nature, and human life, and their inter-relation, he care- 
fully wrought out in Paracelsus. So sure was the foundation 
laid here that it remained throughout a long and active literary 
career. 

We can hardly lay too much stress upon the fact that in 
Pauline and Paracelsus are to be found those fundamental 
truths on God, man, and nature, which he gave a lifetime to 
expand and enrich, and which filled his life with a radiant hope 
in an endless future. 

If we master the principles to be found in Pauline and 
Paracelsus, we shall have the key to Browning's mind and art, 
and shall find but fev/ " obscurities " in any of his poems of the 
first order. In Pauline he had said, " I am made up of inten- 
sest life," and this is first made evident in Paracelsus. The 
scientific spirit of the fifteenth century, in its chivalrous quest 
of knowledge, its noble enthusiasm in life, fascinated him. 
The story of Paracelsus, that pioneer of modern chemistry, is 
that of the struggle of a great soul to attain its idea while 
passing through the fires of its own weakness within, and of 
persecution without. Paracelsus is aroused to aspire by this 
thought : " Men know, and therefore rule : I too will know ; " 
but his two friends warn him that a course which produces 
carelessness to human love cannot be safe ; more than knowl- 
edge is needed to attain to the highest, for knowledge breeds 
pride, but love breeds humility. It was through this poem, 
which reveals the fallacy of the intellect, that the most intel- 
lectual poet of our time became introduced to the literary 
world. 

Paracelsus Aspires 

In these lines we have the reply of Paracelsus to the warn- 
ing of his friends as he starts on his travels in search of 
knowledge. 

Line 13 sounds the fundamental note in Browning's theory 
of knowledge, and reveals his familiarity with Plato. 



Pages 9-12] NoteS 35 ^ 

Aprile's Song 
After a quest of nine years, in which Paracelsus travels 
from Wiirzburg to Constantinople and " attains," he pauses 
to think over his gains. With youth gone, worn in mind and 
body, he recalls what his friends told him ere he set out, and 
while musing he hears the voice of a young Italian poet sing- 
ing these notes, which reveal a yearning for love like his own 
for knowledge, and a like failure, because each is workmg 
apart from God. 

Aprile's Revelation 

Aprile and Paracelsus meet, and each sees in the failure 
of the other the one thing needful for him. Paracelsus begs 
Aprile to tell him 

What thou wouldst be, and what I am, 

and the reply is given in this selection. It reveals Browning's 
youthful poetical ideal. Few passages are to be found in 
English poetry more beautiful in conception or more perfect 
in execution than the first, or more pathetic than the last 
lines. At the close of Aprile's revelation, Paracelsus voices 
the following noble ideal : 

Love me, henceforth, Aprile, while I learn 
To love ; and, merciful God, forgive us both ! 
We wake at length from weary dreams ; but both 
Have slept in fairy-land. 

I, too, have sought to know, as thou to love — 
Excluding love as thou refusedst knowledge. 

To this Aprile, dying, replies : 

I see, now: God is the perfect poet. 
Song : " Heap cassia, sandalbuds and stripes " 

It has often been said that Browning's personality shines 
clear in every one of his characters, but in this charming lyric 
there is surely an exception to his characteristic method. The 
poet is at one with the philosopher of an age long past, 
and every thought and feeling is contemporary with this 
wanderer in the world of subtle symbolism. This is a 
lyric of an alchemist's delight in his simples, and anticipates 
some of the elements in the epistle of Karshish the Arabian 
physician. 



352 Notes [Pages 12-19 

Song : " Thus the Mayne gHdeth " 

The three great teachers, Wordsworth, Tennyson, and 
Browning, by virtue of the vision and faculty divine, while 
musing 

On Man, on Nature, and on Human Life, 

have revealed the same essential truth, — the divinity of Nature 
and Man. In scientific accuracy of description, Tennyson and 
Browning are much alike. They often describe aspects of 
nature and animal life for their own sakes ; while Wordsworth 
does this rarely. If he portrays the shadow which the daisy 
casts, it is to reveal its almost human purpose — 

To protect the lingering dewdrop from the sun. 

Paracelsus Attains 

Paracelsus does not understand Aprile's final message. He 
continues his aspiration for knowledge, while trying to unite 
knowledge and love ; but still feels that knowledge is higher 
than love ; so he goes back to the world. He is made pro- 
fessor at Basil, where he lectures and practises his art of heal- 
ing with great success, but as he is too revolutionary in that 
age of revolutions, he is driven from the University as a 
quack, and decides in spite of pleadings of his friend Festus 
to enjoy all as well as to know all. He starts again on his 
travels, and, after years of wandering, lies dying in his cell at 
the hospital at Salzburg. P'estus is watching by his bedside in 
the stillness of the night, while his mind is tossing like a sea 
in a tempest ; at the dawn he becomes calm, and conscious of 
the presence of his friend. Festus asks him to declare the 
meaning of life. This selection is his reply, through which he 
attains to something better than he sought — a conception that 
his success and his failures reveal a means by which God's 
creatures struggle to the higher life. His idea of evolution 
given here is that of a theist. Browning wrote to Dr. Furnivall 
in 1881 : "All that seems proved in Darwin's scheme was a 
conception familiar to me from the beginning." Cf. Tennyson, 
The Making of Man, By an Evolutionist, and Wages ; John 
Fiske, Idea 0/ God, Destiny of Man, Through Nature to God. 

To every form of being is assigned 
An active principle : — liowe'er removed 
From sense and observation, it subsists 
In all things, in all natures; in the stars 
Of azure heaven, the unenduring clouds, 
In flower and tree, in every pebbly stone 



Pages 19-20] NoteS 353 

That paves the brooks, the stationary rocks, 
The moving waters, and the invisible air. 
Whate'er exists hath properties that spread 
Beyond itself, communicating good, 
A simple blessing, or with evil mixed; 
Spirit that knows no insulated spot. 
No chasm, no solitude; from link to link 
It circulates, the Soul of all the worlds. 

Wordsworth, The Exctcrsion, book ix, 1-14. 

Professor Dowden says : " Aprile is the victim of the tempta- 
tions of a passionate heart ; Paracelsus of an aspiring intellect." 
In these two types we have the two extremes of poetry, — that 
which relies upon the intensity and depth of emotion as a 
motive power to action, and consequently reveals poetic moods 
of imagination and passion ; and that which requires intellect- 
ual agility and subtle penetration. The great poetry of the 
world has influenced men by its power to inspire lofty ideals 
of conduct and beauty rather than by its wealth of intellectual 
information. The poet who is gifted with the impulse to 
know will run some risk of neglecting the weightier matters of 
poetic art, which require that the medium through which the 
thought is to be revealed, should be in perfect harmony with 
the idea on the one hand and the emotion on the other. In 
this poem Browning at times reveals a mastery of that most 
difficult poetic utterance, blank verse. In dignity, strength, 
purity, and power it resembles Milton. It is in complete har- 
mony with the noble thoughts it enshrines. There are few 
of those perversities of form, those "thumps upon the back," 
which disfigure many of his later poems. 

Second Period : 1841-1868 
PIPPA PASSES 



New Year's Hymn 

The publication of Paracelsus extended Browning's social 
circle. On meeting friends at dinner at Sargeant Talfourd's, the 
toast " The Poets of England " was proposed, with a kindly 
reference to the young poet, the author of Paracelsus. Words- 
worth, who was present, leaned across the table and graciously 
said, "I am proud to drink your health, Mr. Browning." 
Browning's father had removed to Hatcham, and in 1835 his 
friendship with the actor Macready began and brought with 
23 



354 Notes [pages 19-20 

it significant consequences ; for Macready requested him to 
write a play, and from 1837 to 1846 he became a writer of 
plays. Strafford, the first of these, was played by Macready at 
Covent Garden, but without financial success. In the spring 
of 1838 he set out upon his first visit to Italy. Sordello, a 
companion to Paracelsus, was begun in 1835, but as he wished 
to execute a part of the work in Italy it was not published 
until 1840. It is "the history of a soul," and although the 
theme may be clear, the language is so strangely and wildly 
perplexing — "a type of shorthand," as Professor Dowden 
says — that few have been able to decipher it. Yet loyalty to 
it has at times been made a test of discipleship to Browning. 

On his return from Italy, Pippa Passes, the dramas, Kitig 
Victor and King Charles, and The Return of the Druses oc- 
cupied his attention. At the same time he began short lyrical 
pieces, and in 1841 issued the first series of his poems in a 
pamphlet called Bells and Pomegrafiates. (Cf. Exodus, xxviii. 
33, 34.) This idea was suggested by Moxon the publisher, and 
tlie expense of publication was borne by his father. The first 
of this series was Pippa Passes, a lyrical mask, suggested by 
his visit to Asolo, his first love among Italian cities, which 
was destined to be his last love as well. Mrs. Orr says that 
the idea of this poem came to Browning when he was walking 
alone in Dulwich wood, from thinking of one walking alone 
through life, apparently too humble to have any influence, and 
yet unconsciously affecting the lives of others. 

Pippa is a little silk-weaver of Asolo, in the Trevisan, who 
on waking early one New Year's day, her only holiday in 
the year, plans how she will celebrate. She remembers four 
representative types — "four happiest ones" — the wealthy 
Ottima, the young bride Phene, the young patriot Luigi, and 
the Bishop. As her fancy works, she says : 

For am I not, this day, 

Whate'er I please ? What shall I please to-day ? 

I may fancy all day — and it shall be so — 

That I taste of the pleasures, am called by the names, 

Of the Happiest Four in Asolo. 

Then she bursts forth in this dewy morning Song of Service, 
her New Year's Hymn, as she takes the street, fancy free. 

Song : " The year 's at the spring " 

This radiantly beautiful song, with its liquid melody, Pippa 
sings as she ascends the hill where Ottima sits with her para- 



Pages 20-23] NoteS 355 

mour Sebald, who, after having killed her husband Luca, is 
about to crown her ; as they hear it, they are arrested in their 
vicious lives and change their manners. The song bears marks 
of the influence of Keats. 

Song : "Give her but a least excuse," etc. 

Some art students, learning that one of their number is in 
love with a young Greek girl, who is an artist's model, play 
a trick on him by sending to him letters as from her, which lead 
him to believe she is a woman of birth and culture. When 
they are married he learns that she is only an ignorant peasant 
girl and is about to discard her with a sum of money, but he 
hears Pippa singing this song as she passes, his manhood is 
awakened, and he repents. 

Song : " A king lived long ago " 
(This song was first published in the Monthly Repository, 
1835-1836.) 

Luigi, a young patriot who thinks all kings are tyrants, is 
believed to have joined the secret society of the Carbonari, 
and is under suspicion by the authorities. He is visiting his 
mother, and is urged by her not to think so rashly of the 
Emperor, when he hears Pippa singing this old folk-song as 
she passes the tower where he is. He sees how he has mis- 
judged his ruler, and becomes a real patriot. 

Song : " Over-head the tree-tops meet " 

As Pippa passes the house of the bishop, he is planning her 
death because she is the child of his brother, at whose death he 
connived and whose property he is enjoying. When he hears 
this song his conscience is aroused and he repents. Mr. 
Chesterton thinks that in this episode of the poem Browning 
made a literary mistake. He says : " The whole central and 
splendid idea of the drama is the fact that Pippa is utterly 
remote from the grand folk whose lives she troubles and 
transforms. To make her in the end turn out to be the niece 
of one of them is like a whiff from an Adelphi melodrama." 

The Day's Close in Asolo 

At last, tired out with her day's fancies, Pippa returns to her 
squalid room, unconscious of the great work she has done. 
As she lies down to sleep, she thinks of the silk she may weave 



356 



Notes [Pages 23-24 



as possibly destined to adorn Ottima's cloak, and this song 
voices itself. It is full of Browning's revelation of the truth 
that Pippsf, having rekindled the flame of love and devotion in 
the hearts of these great ones, is happier than they. Speaking 
of the happy instinct which caused Browning to make the cen- 
tral character here a woman, Mr. Chesterton says : " A man's 
good work is effected by doing what he does, a woman's by 
being what she is." " The dust of the dead Keats and Shelley 
turned to flower-seed in the brain of the young poet," says Mr. 
Edmund Gosse. " There had been nothing in the pastoral kind 
written so delightfully since the days of the Jacobean drama- 
tists. ... Of the lyrical interludes and seed-pearls of song, 
it is a commonplace to say that nothing more exquisite or 
natural was ever written, or rather warbled." " Poetry," says 
Augustine Birrell, " should be vital, either stirring our blood 
by its divine movement, or snatching our breath by its divine 
perfection. To do both is supreme glory ; to do either is en- 
during fame." Pippa Passes has already won a place among 
poems of supreme glory, which means enduring fame for its 
author. It suggests Wordsworth's little poem written in the 
album of his god-daughter : 

Small service is true service while it lasts : 
Of humblest friends, bright creature I 

Scorn not one : 
The daisy, by the shadow that it casts, 
Protects the lingering dewdrop from the sun. 

Mr. Stopford Brooke says : " Those portions of Pippa Passes 
which belong to Pippa herself, the most natural, easy, and 
simplest portions, will be the source of the greatest pleasure and 
the deepest thought. They are filled with youth and its de- 
light, alike of the body and the soul. What Browning's spirit 
felt and lived when he was young and his heart beating with 
the life of the universe, is in them, and it is their greatest 
charm." 

There are in this poem no bewildering byways and obscure 
nooks of a remote time to be examined by the intellect ; only 
the natural passion of a simple and wholesome child-life to be 
enjoyed by tender and delicate imaginative insight. 

It is worth noting that one of the first reviews of Pippa 
Passes was that by Margaret Fuller in the Dial, April, 1843. 



Pages 28-31] NotCS 359 

INCIDENT OF THE FRENCH CAMP 

1842 

(The original title was Camp.) 

The events of this poem were associated with the siege of 
Ratisbon, a city of Bavaria. In 1809 Napoleon stormed the 
town. The blending of the lyrical element in the young sol- 
dier's nature — his delight in serving the Emperor — with the 
dramatic situation — the silent, brooding, anxious Napoleon 
— renders the ballad vivid, picturesque, tragic. Browmng s 
expression is most luminous when his passion is the deepest ; 
hence it is in dealing with the feelings of men and women, 
rather than with their intricate thinking, that he is master of 
poetic expression. 

SOLILOQUY IN THE SPANISH CLOISTER 

1842 

(The original title was Cloister.) 

In contrast to the last poem of devotion to an ideal, we have 
here an example of spite, hatred, and envy toward one who 
is loyal to his calling and delights in his work. The situation 
would be unbearable but for the humor. 

Mr. Walter Bagehot, in contrasting the three types of lit- 
erary art — the pure in Wordsworth, the ornate in Tennyson, 
and the grotesque in Browning — says: "This [grotesque] art 
works by contrasts. ... It shows you what ought to be by 
what ought not to be ; when complete, it reminds you of the 
perfect image by showing you the distorted and imperfect 
image. ... An exceptional monstrosity of horrid ugliness 
cannot be made pleasing except it be made to suggest — 
to recall— the perfection, the beauty from which it is a 
deviation." 

Browning's love of the grotesque was a serious and con- 
scious element of his art; it produced some of his greatest 
work and was the cause of some of his grievous failures. 

Mr. Matthew Arnold insisted that the two requirements for 
high poetic art were " beauty and felicity of form, and truth and 
seriousness of subject." While both Tennyson and Browning 
united these in their work of the first order, the former is 
primarily a literary artist, and the latter a searcher after 
truth. Mr. Hallam Tennyson says : " My father used to rally 
Browning playfully on his harshness of rhythm, the obscurity 



360 



Notes [Pages 32-40 



and length of his poems. The retort would be, ' I cannot alter 
myself ; the people must take me as they find me.' My father 
would repeat his usual dictum about literary work, ' An artist 
should get his workmanship as good as he can, and make his 
work as perfect as possible. A small vessel, built on fine 
lines, is likely to float further down the stream of time than a 
big raft.' They would laugh heartily together at Browning's 
faculty for absurd and abstruse rhymes." 



WARING 



The subject of this poem was Mr. Alfred Domett, a friend 
of the poet, born in Camberwell in 181 1. He was a Cam- 
bridge man, a lawyer and writer. Being of a restless nature, 
he went to New Zealand and became a leader in affairs of 
state, for which service he was created Companion of the 
order of St. Michael and St. George. He returned to London 
in 187 1, renewed his friendship with Browning, published a 
volume of poems, in one of which he paid a tribute to Brown- 
ing alluding to the 

Strange Melodies, 
That lustrous Song-Child languished to impart, 
Breathing his boundless love through boundless Art. 

And again he calls him : 

Subtlest Asserter of the Soul in Song. 

On one occasion he wrote a satirical poem. On a Certain 
Critique on Pippa Passes (Query: Passes — what? The 
critic's comprehension.) 

Mr. Stopford Brooke calls this poem an impressionist pic- 
ture long before impressionism came. 

CRISTINA 

1842 

This little poem is full of that idealism so characteristic of 
Browning when treating of the subtle moments in the lives of 
men and women. 

What the man gained is infinite, eternal ; we are left to con- 
jecture what was the real loss to the woman, exchanging the 
infinite for the finite. There was a bit of the tragedy of life 
here, as Browning viewed it. 



Pages 41-51] 



Notes 361 



THE PIED PIPER OF HAMELIN 

1842 

This child's poem, full of fancy and moving melody, was 
written and inscribed to a little son of the actor, William 
Macready, who was confined to the house by illness. The 
lad had some talent for drawing, and Browning had previously 
written a poem for him to illustrate, founded on the death of 
the Pope's legate at the Council of Trent. This poem was 
never printed, but the boy made such clever drawings for it, 
the poet wrote The Pied Piper. " The daintiest bit of folk- 
lore in English verse," says Mr. E. C. Stedman. It carried 
Browning's name into myriads of homes in England and 
America. 

HOW THEY BROUGHT THE GOOD NEWS 
FROM GHENT TO AIX 

1845 

In 1843 series iv and v of Bells and Potnegranates were pub- 
lished ; the former a tragedy. The Return of the Druses ; and 
the latter a tragedy. Blot in the 'Scutcheoti. Mrs. Orr says that 
in 1844 he visited Italy, and on his return journey stopped at 
Leghorn with the purpose of meeting E. J. Trelawney, who 
had known Byron and was the last man to see Shelley alive. 
In 1844 series vi, a drama, Colombe's Birthday, was issued ; 
and in 1845 series vii, Drattiatic Romances and Lyrics. This 
series contained twenty-five poems in which the poet is seen 
ascending the heights — his Mount of Vision. 

It was during the year 184S that he met for the first time 
Miss Elizabeth Barrett, the gifted poet, who was living at 
Wimpole Street, London. She was living an invalid life, and 
in grief at the death of a favorite brother. The meeting of the 
two was brought about by the kindly offices of that friend of 
poets John Kenyon, who was Miss Barrett's cousin. He had 
shown her Browning's poems, and had sent hers to Browning's 
sister, who naturally showed them to the poet. When Brown- 
ing found in these poems praise of his Paracelsus, he wrote 
an appreciation of hers in return, and through this avenue a 
meeting of the two was but natural. For a revelation of the 
new life which thus came to two souls, one should read Letters 
of Robert Brotoning and Elizabeth Barrett. The first letter 
of his begins, " I love your verses with all my heart, dear Miss 



362 



Notes [Pages 41-51 



Barrett." In her reply she says, " Such a letter from such a 
hand ! Sympathy is dear — very dear to me. . . . Shall I have 
courage to see you soon, I wonder ! " 

Letter follows letter in rapid succession, each full of good- 
natured banter, literary and personal. Here are a few types: 
He writes, " Do you know I was once not very far from seeing 
— really seeing you?" She replies, " If you had entered the 
'Crypt,' you might have caught cold or been tired to death." 
Again she writes, " I hear of the ' old room ' and the ' Bells 
lying about,' with an interest you may guess at, perhaps." On 
hearing of her excuses for not allowing him to call, ' ill health, 
east winds,' etc., he sends this greeting, '• But if my truest 
heart's wishes avail, . . . you shall laugh at east winds yet. . . . 
Always when you write, though about your own works . . . put 
me in always a little official bulletin-line that shall say, 'I am 
better,' or ' still better,' will you ? " When she hears he has 
been ill, she inquires, " May I ask how the head is .' just under 
the bag ? Just a word, to say how you are." When think- 
ing of meeting her, he exclaims, " You do not know what I 
shall estimate that permission at, nor do I, quite. . . . You 
must help me mth all my new romances and lyrics, and lays 
and plays, and read them and heed them, and end them and 
mend them." When he felt the first visit to be near, we have : 
" I will call at two on Tuesday. . . . You see it is high time you 
saw me, for I have clearly written myself out." She replies, 
" Before you come, try to forgive me for my ' infinite kindness ' 
in the manner of consenting to see you." 

The result of the meeting was a letter bearing at least an 
implied offer of marriage. Feeling that marriage to an invalid 
would be fatal to his future, after much agitation Miss Barrett 
insisted that they must remain only friends. This little stanza 
reveals how she felt : 

Love you seek for, presupposes 

Summer heat and sunnj- glow. 
Tell me, do you find moss-roses 

Budding in the snow ? 
Snow might kill the rose-tree's root, 
Shake it quickly from your foot, 

Lest it harm you as you go. 

He asked that the letter be returned ; the wish was honored 
and the letter destroyed. Visits were continued, and dis- 
cussions held on the nature of poetry and the arts ; often he 
left his manuscript for her correction, while he took away 



Pages 51-53] 



Notes 363 



one of hers for review. On learning of her home troubles 
at the hands of a selfish and autocratic father, — for, "since 
the days of Clarissa Harlowe there never was such a prepos- 
terous family despot," says Leslie Stephen — he breaks over 
the barriers, but is again repulsed. She longed to go to a 
milder climate for her health, but the imperious will of the 
father prevented. " He came and prayed over her," says Mr- 
Chesterton, "with a kind of melancholy glee, and with the 
avowed solemnity of a watcher by a deathbed." Yet, in spite 
of all this paternal cruelty, she did not lose courage ; her love 
of her art saved her for the love of a personal embodiment of 
that art, and she continued to write the cleverest poetry yet 
produced by an Englishwoman. 

Miss Barrett had already written oiBdls and Pomegranates : 

Or from Browning some "Pomegranate" which, if cut 

deep down the middle. 
Shows a heart within blood-tinctured, of a veined humanity. 

And it was for the volume of 1845 she had the greatest 
admiration. 

This spirited poem, which has no historical foundation, was 
conceived by Browning on his first visit to Italy in 1838, 
" and written on shipboard off the African coast," says Pro- 
fessor Dowden, "when the fancy of a gallop ' on the back of 
a certain good horse York,' which he often rode at Hatcham, 
suddenly presented itself in pleasant contrast to the tedium 
of hours on shipboard." It was written on the fly-leaf of 
Bartoli's Simbali. 

PICTOR IGNOTUS 

1845 

This poem, revealing the soul of an unknown painter as he 
thinks of the popularity of one of his compeers, is the first of the 
series by Browning in which he deals with those types among 
the great Italian painters. 

Some critics have interpreted Browning here as teachmg 
that the painter failed because of timidity, fearing the ignoble 
touch of the base world, when he should have dared all for his 
art; while others have thought that the poem teaches the 
dignity of the great artist in not being tempted to work for a 
price or for praise, but only for the glory of God, — the motif 
of all great art, whether poetry, painting, architecture, or 



3^4 



Notes [Pages 53-54 



music. What Professor Dowden has said of Wordsworth's 
unconcern of the applause of the world applies here : " When 
the singing robe or prophetic mantle is on, a man does not peer 
about anxiously for auditors." Browning's early love of art 
and artists was stimulated by frequent visits with his father 
to Dulwich Gallery, not far from his home. 

THE LOST LEADER 

1845 

While this poem has been considered as a direct thrust at 
Wordsworth for the conservatism of his later life, yet it was 
intended to reveal rather a type than any particular character, 
as Browning himself confessed. He says : " I did in my hasty 
youth presume to use the great and venerated personality of 
Wordsworth as a sort of painter's model, one from which this 
or the other particular feature may be selected and turned to 
account : had I intended more, above all, such a boldness as 
portraying the entire man, I should not have talked about 
' handfuls of silver and bits of riband.' These never influenced 
the change of politics in the great poet." 

Professor Dowden says : " It may be questioned whether 
Wordsworth, after he had parted with his democratic convic- 
tions and earned the name of renegade, did not retain a truer 
democratic sense of the dignity of manhood than is possessed 
by writers who deal fluently in the platitudes of fervid re- 
publicanism, and do lip worship to Humanity, while they 
exhibit in their temper and their themes all that can render 
humanity the reverse of worshipful." 

Browning himself became more conservative and tolerant 
later in life, for he once said of the English county gentle- 
man, " Talk of abolishing that class of men ! They are the 
salt of the earth ! " 

The late Senator Hoar wrote of the sentiments of the poem 
as follows: "I would not speak without reverence of the great 
genius of Browning, or of the gentle Shelley without a pitying 
love. ... I am speaking only of their relation to righteousness 
and liberty as wrought out in the conduct of states. I am 
speaking of the history of England for a hundred years. 
What did they do for it ? What accomplishment for humanity 
have they to show outside their place in literature ? What 
great moral battlefield, what great victory, did they win ? 
What are the deeds these great men did while Wordsworth 



Pages 54-5S] NoteS 365 

' boasts his quiescence ' ? I am speaking solely of political 
achievements. What great leader in the battle of freedom 
points for inspiration to Robert Browning or Shelley ? . . . 
The name that Browning would blot out shines like a con- 
stellation in the sky. The 'lost soul' of Wordsworth, as he 
said of Milton's, was 

Like a star and dwelt apart, 
Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free." 



HOME THOUGHTS FROM ABROAD 

1845 

(As first printed, this title included three poems, Oh to be 
in England ; Here ^s to Nelson's Memory ; and Nobly Cape 
Saint Vincent^ 

This poem and the one which follows it were bits from 
Browning's experience when abroad in 1838, and reveal almost 
the only note typically English to be found in his works. 
Everywhere in Tennyson the note is personal, English, of the 
country to which he belonged. His scenery, men and women, 
social and political ideals, are thoroughly English. Words- 
worth's sympathies and ideals are universal, they " span the 
total of humanity," and yet the atmosphere which pervades his 
work is English. Although at heart a true Englishman, de- 
lighting in England's natural charms and proud of her power 
and influence, Browning is in no sense a historian of English 
life and its ideals. 



THE BISHOP ORDERS HIS TOMB 

1845 

(First printed in Hood's Magazine, March, 1845.) 
This poem is a notable illustration of Browning's singular 
power of creating a character and then setting him free to live 
his own life in his appropriate age. What went into this 
graphic picture of the decaying Renaissance .'' The decline of 
religion into a weak paganism ; iniquity in the highest church 
officials ; lust of material possessions, — jewels, precious stones, 
and costly marble ; hypocrisy and petty jealousies ; love of 
voluptuous splendor ; base pride in death ; inglorious ambi- 
tions, — even to the best Latin inscription; vanities of the 
world and the flesh ; a passing civilization, — all revealed in a 
single character. 



366 Notes [Pages 58-83 

Cf. Tennyson, Palace of Art, for a picture of individual decay 
and recovery. 

1. 91. The Bisliop's mind wanders liere ; cf. line 59. 

1. 99. " Elucescebat." Not the type of Latin desired by the 
Bishop, as it partakes of Gandolf s " gaudy verse," 1. 78. 

Browning called this " dog-latin," and " Ulpian the golden 
Jurist, a copper latinist." (Letter to D. G. Rossetti.) 



THE FLOWER'S NAME 
1845 

(First printed in Hood's Magazine, June, 1845, under the title 
Garden Fancies.) 

In his treatment of the various activities of love — as a 
memory, a present possession, and an anticipation — Brown- 
ing touches chords to which our common humanity vibrates 
in unison. This poem needs no comment, no explanation, no 
analysis ; it is simple, sensuous, passionate. 



THE FLIGHT OF THE DUCHESS 

1845 

(Written at Hatcham.) 

This poem was suggested by the memory of a line, 

Following the Queen of the Gypsies, O ! 

which Browning, when a boy, heard sung by a woman on Guy 
Fawkes day. The first two hundred lines were sent to Hood 
in April, 1845, for publication in his magazine. At that time 
Hood was ill and in need. 

As the old huntsman tells the Story, full of romantic passion, 
vivid in pictures of nature and animal life, in irregular gallop- 
ing verse, we are soon under the spell, and in full sympathy 
with him in his chivalrous work of setting free the young bird 
from its stiff cage of conventionalism. The aid which the 
decrepit old gypsy was able to give to the yearning young con- 
vent girl is another illustration of the old text, " God useth the 
simple things of the world to confound the subtleties of the 
crafty." The suggestion of the g}'psy that the Duchess is 
of her own class is a beautiful symbol of their similarity of 
nature, love of freedom, life in the fresh air and under the 



Pages 84-S7] NoteS 367 

clear sky, full of health, truth, and naturalness. On Thurs- 
day May 2, 1845, Miss Barrett wrote, " Oh ! the Flight of 
the Duchess — do let us hear more of her." The power of the 
gypsy's song and the smile of the Duchess to move the hunts- 
man and stir within him the passion to follow on the quest 
(after his duty to his master is done) is one of the finest 
touches of the poet's art. Professor Dowden says : " Such a 
small prisoner, all life and fire, was before many months 
actually delivered from her cage in Wimpole Street, and 
Robert Browning himself, growing in stature among his in- 
cantations, played the part of the gypsy." Cf. note to Evelyn 
Hope. 

Mr. E. Gurney speaks of the grotesque effects of some of 
the double and triple rhymes in this poem as " producing the 
effect of jokes made during the performance of a symphony." 

1. 322. " Fifty-part canon." " A canon, in music, is a piece 
wherein the subject is repeated in various keys. ... To 
manage three is enough of an achievement for a good musi- 
cian." (Dr. Berdoe.) 

FAME 

1845 
Immortality hoped for through fame on the one hand and 
through love on the other can at the longest be only temporary, 
and while they may rightly be cherished as stepping stones, 
they cannot satisfy the human heart ; only the hope of personal 
immortality can do that. 

THE BOY AND THE ANGEL 

184s 

(First printed in Hood's Magazine, August, 1844.) 
In this simple legend, breathing the atmosphere of Catholic 
Europe, Browning has enshrined the most moving truth of 
the Christian religion : that human praise emanating from the 
soul joyous in its simple work is more pleasing to the Lord 
than that which often clothes itself in the garments of formal 
religious worship. 

Thrice blest whose lives are faithful prayers, 

Whose loves in higher love endure ; 

What souls possess themselves so pure, 
Or is there blessedness like theirs ? 

In Alemoriam, xxxii. 



368 Notes [Pages 87-94 

THE GLOVE 

1845' 

This old story, originating at the court of Francis I., and 
repeated in many languages, by Schiller in German and Leigh 
Hunt in English, is retold by Browning with suggestive varia- 
tions, in order to make the implicit truth explicit. By some 
critics the act of the woman had been condemned as originat- 
ing in vanity rather than in love ; but he takes the lady's part, 
and in contrast to her happiness makes De Lorge's future 
somewhat troubled by episodes of his wife's gloves. 

LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 

1855 

In 1846 series viii, the last of Bells and Pomegranates, Lnria, 
and A Soul's Tragedy was published. Miss Barrett now began 
to grow stronger, to take drives and even walks. " Some- 
thing like a miracle of the healing of the sick," says Professor 
Dowden, " had been effected." Longer resistance to the 
natural gravitation of the two toward each other was im- 
possible. In March they were engaged, and planned marriage 
in the late summer, with a visit to Italy. But the opportune 
moment did not come until the Barretts planned to go to 
Tunbridge ; it was then decided they must act. He wrote on 
September loth, " We must be tnarried directly and go to Italy. 
I will go for a license to-day and we can be married on Saturday, 
I will call to-morrow at three and arrange everything with you." 
On the nth she wrote : " But come to-morrow, come. Almost 
everybody is to be away at Richmond, at a picnic, and we shall 
be free on all sides." A license was procured, and on Septem- 
ber 1 2th they were privately married at Marylebone church, 
being attended by only two witnesses and Miss Barrett's maid, 
not even their most intimate friends knowing of the act. 
After the marriage ceremony they parted. Mrs. Browning 
drove to the house of a friend, where she made the event known 
to her sisters and then returned home. On " Sept. 12 — 4^ 
P.M.," she wrote : " I write a word that you may read it and 
know how all is safe so far, and that I am not slain downright 
with the day. 0\\, such a day ! " For the next week there was 
much letter writing in preparation for their flight, and on the 
eve of the day before she left home she wrote (it is the last of 



Pages 92-94] 



Notes 369 



the published Letters) : "It is dreadful . . • dreadful ... to 
have to give pain here by a voluntary act -for the first time 
in my life." On the 19th she quietly left Wimpole Street 
forever, taking with her Flush, her pet dog, and her maid. 
She said to Flush, "O Flush, if you make a noise, I am 
lost " She met her husband at a stationer's shop, and they 
were soon on their way to Havre, completing thus the most 
romantic first act in the lives of two poets. Mr. Barrett, after 
the marriage, said : " I 've no objection to the young man, but 
my daughter should have been thinking of another world. 

How complete a secret the engagement and marriage had 
been is revealed by the following : Mrs. Jameson, the distin- 
guished writer, and friend of Miss Barrett, had invited her to 
be her companion in Paris for the winter of 1846, but she re- 
plied that she could not accept, as her health would not permit. 
What was Mrs. Jameson's surprise therefore, shortly after her 
arrival in Paris, to receive a note from Mr. Brownmg saying 
that he and his wife had just come from London on their way 
to Italy They remained in Paris two weeks, and then, in 
company with Mrs. Jameson, set out for Italy. Mrs Jameson 
wrote to a friend at the time as follows: " Both excellent ; but 
God help them ! for I know not how the two poet^ heads and 
poet hearts will get on through this prosaic world " 

They travelled slowly, owing to Mrs. Browning s health, and 
decided to spend the winter in Pisa. Of the life here, Mrs. 
Browning wrote, "I never was so happy before. ^ Iheir 
housekeeping was as plain as their thinking was high. 1 heir 
custom was," says Mr. Edmund Gosse, "to write alone, 
and not to show each other what they had written. 1 his was 
a rule which he sometimes broke, but she never. He worked 
in a room down stairs, where their meals were served ; she 
in a room on the floor above. One day early in 1847, their 
breakfast being over, Mrs. Browning went up stairs, while 
her husband stood at the window watching the street till 
the table should be cleared. He was presently aware of 
some one behind him, although the servant was gone. It 
was Mrs. Browning, who held him by the shoulder to prevent 
his turning to look at her, and at the same time pushed a 
packet of papers, the very notes and chronicle of her betrothal, 
into the pocket of his coat, and then she fled again to her 
own room." The parcel contained the Sonnets from the Portu- 
guese which have now made her name so famous because they 
reveal her highest imaginative flights, her keenest emotions, 
and her subtlest technical skill, as illustrated in the following : 
24 



370 Notes [pages 92-94 

I lived with visions for my company 

Instead of men and women, years ago, 

And found tliem gentle mates, nor thought to know 

A sweeter music than they played to me. 

But soon their trailing purple was not free 

Of this world's dust, — their lutes did silent grow, 

And I myself grew faint and blind below 

Their vanishing eyes. Then thou didst come, . . . Kobe, 

Beloved, what they seemed. Their shining fronts. 

Their songs, their splendours . . . (better, yet the same, . . . 

As river water hallowed into fonts . . .) 

Met in thee, and from out thee overcame 

My soul with satisfaction of all wants — 

Because God's gifts put man's best dreams to shame. 

In April they went to Florence, first living in an apartment 
at Via delle Belle Donne and later in the Palazzo Guidi, the 
Casa Guidi of Mrs. Browning's poems. " We are as happy," 
wrote Browning, " as two owls in a hole, two toads under a 
tree-stump, or any other queer two poking creatures that we let 
live after the fashion of their black hearts, only Ba [his wife] is 
fat and rosy; yes, indeed ! " In this year the memorable friend- 
ship with the American sculptor, W. W. Story, began. During 
the next two years he was busy preparing for the press an 
edition of liis poems, and Christmas Eve and Easter Day, 
and she was at work upon Aurora Leigh. In March, 1849, a 
son was born to them. " A lovely, fat, strong child, with double 
chin and rosy cheeks, and a great wide chest," is the mother's 
description of him. But the joy of the event was soon colored 
with sorrow at the death of Browning's mother. 

In 1850 Christmas Eve and Easter Day was published, and 
Mrs. Browning's Sonnets from the Portuguese. " I dared not 
reserve for myself," said Browning, " the finest sonnets written 
in any language since Shakespeare's." It was natural that 
these years should be fruitful ones. He wrote an essay on 
his young ideal, Shelley, his only significant prose work. In 
185 1 they returned to London, and the circle of friends was 
widened ; but the climate did not suit Mrs. Browning, and they 
went to Rome. Mrs. Orr says, " Browning commemorated his 
marriage in a manner all his own. He went to the church in 
which it was solemnized, and kissed the paving stones in front 
of the door." In 1853 Story wrote Lowell from the baths of 
Lucca : " Of society there is none we care to meet but the 
Brownings, who are living here. With them we have constant 
and delightful intercourse. They are so simple, unaffected, 
and sympathetic." 



Pages 94-99] NoteS 37 1 

Mrs. Browning writes : " You know Mr. and Mrs. Story. 
She and I go backward and forward to tea, drinking and gos- 
siping at one another's houses, and our husbands hold the 
reins." They returned to Florence in May, 1853. Plans were 
now made for the publication of Men and Women, in two 
volumes, and two volumes of Mrs. Browning's ; this necessi- 
tated their going to London to superintend the work. 

In these volumes, Men and Wotnen, we get nearer to the 
real Browning, as the personal note is clearer. They reveal 
three types or aspects of love : first, personal ; second, for art ; 
and third, for religious ideals. Love Among the Ruins belongs 
to the first of these. 

In his studies of the feeling of love Browning contrasts, as 
he does in art, that spirit which dares to assert itself even 
against conventional laws, and thus succeeds, with that base 
spirit which calculates consequences and loses. 



A LOVERS' QUARREL 

1855 

Matthew Arnold has said that the poet must be painter and 
musician too, for he must the aspect of the moment show, 
as does the former ; and, the feeling of the moment know, 
as does the latter. 

But, ah ! then comes his sorest spell 
Of toil, he must life's movement tell. 



Grave, gay, child, parent, husband, wife, 
He follows home, and lives their life. 

No poet since Shakespeare has so well illustrated this as 
has Browning. In this touching remembrance on the part of 
the lover the poet has crowded gladness and sadness, the 
former of nature and the latter of man, in distinctive contrast 
and with most impassioned warmth. 



EVELYN HOPE 

1855 

In this poem the passion has become by the death of its 
object a spiritual longing for its realization in the next world. 
It is as fresh and wholesome as Wordsworth's Lucy Poems, 
or Landor's Rose Ayhner ; it appeals to all classes, because 



372 Notes [Pages loi-i 14 

free from the atmosphere of the laboratory on the one hand 
and of the cloister on the other. Here, assuredly, Browning 
agrees with the greatest poetic artists that 

Song's our art. 

" Not the saintly ascetic," says Mr. C. H. Herford, " nor the 
doer of good works, but the artist and lover dominated his 
imagination." Cf. Wordsworth, Highland Girl, for a contrast 
in treatment of love. 



UP AT A VILLA — DOWN IN THE CITY 

1855 

This picture is full of that subtle play of humor which is 
Browning's best. Its revelations are true to much of the life of 
a large class of the present day, — a class of men and women 
who have no resources within themselves, and who when alone 
with books and nature are most miserable. Their nerves are 
worn so bare that rest is pain ; activity in the busy crowd is 
their only recreation. 

In these poems of 1855 we find interesting varieties of 
Browning's verse forms ; the most are original and melodious, 
and yet there are many exhibitions of caprice and waywardness. 



FRA LIPPO LIPPI 
1855 

This poem, in many ways the highest achievement of 
Browning's art, was the result of a visit to the Belle Arti, 
where he saw the picture here described (1. 347, etc ). It pre- 
sents that stage in the history of Renaissance art, when, 
satiated with the portrayal of the religious life revealed in the 
New Testament, the lives of the Saints in earth and heaven, 
it turned to the presentation of the characters of men and 
women as they actually lived and loved in our world as it is. 
Professor Dowden says : " Fra Lippo, with his outbreaks of 
frank sensuality, is far nearer to Browning's kingdom of heaven 
than is the faultless painter." 

All the circumstances of this poem reveal as by a flash the 
early springtime of the new life in art, and its surprises are 
symbolized by the monk being caught out of bounds, enjoying 
for a moment the life of the senses. The holiness of art 



Pages i 14-125] NoteS 373 

according to Browning is in its truth to what is fundamental in 
God's created things, — its wholeness, body, mind, and soul. 

I. 143. "Thank you!" An illustration of Browning's so- 
called dramatic method. It is in reply to a supposed remark 
perhaps in praise of his work. 

1.345. "There's for you." He tips them to keep this 
meeting secret. 

1.347. " I shall paint," etc. The picture of the Coronation 
of the Virgin. 

A TOCCATA OF GALUPPI'S 

1855 
This overture or " touch piece," by the Italian musician of 
the early eighteenth-century Venice, is being played by the 
poet, who sees reflected in its notes the pathos of the butterfly 
life of the great voluptuous city, loving pleasure, and even 
knowledge, for themselves merely. The subtle analysis of the 
details of this musical composition, and the suggestiveness of 
each to the Venetians of the two classes, lovers of pleasure 
and lovers of knowledge, is at times baffling, even to the 
musical expert. "Through this music of the hours of love 
and pleasure," says Professor Dowden, " we hear, as it were, 
the fall of the clay upon a coffin-lid." Nothing in Browning 
more fully reveals his ideal of the work of a subjective poet, 
" embodying," as he says in his essay on Shelley, " the thing he 
perceives, not so much with reference to the many below as to 
the One above him." 

II. 37-39. Knowledge even of material things may lead to 
higher aspirations, but of itself gives little more basis for im- 
mortality than the existence of a butterfly's life of pleasure. 



BY THE FIRESIDE 

185s 

One who has followed the story of the poet's life up to this 
lime will not fail to hear the personal note in this poem. It 
is full of the wealth coming from serene and joyous love. 

ANY WIFE TO ANY HUSBAND 
1855 
The treatment here of the fundamental difference in the 
nature of the love of man and that of woman is exceedingly 



374 Notes [pages 125-138 

skilful in its freedom from any suggestion of criticism upon 
the jealousy of the one or the weakness of the other. Yet 
the poet reveals that the wife in her sense of superiority 
feels something of pity for the husband's temptations. Mr. 
Stopford Brooke thinks that Browning got the idea from the 
frankness of his wife upon such things, for " she had studied 
her own sex in herself and in other women." 



AN EPISTLE OF KARSHISH 
1855 

Browning's mastery of the elements of the past gives this 
picture its strangeness, weirdness, and vividness ; while his 
presentation of those peculiar types of mind in the present 
day — minds which, trained in the sphere of fact, and while 
doubting are ready to investigate the basis of faith in others 
— gives it strange fascination. Although it never presents 
argument, it flashes such revelations that even though the 
reason is ashamed to admit them for a hearing, the heart 
feels their solemn significance and the scoffing is silenced in 
wonder. The union of the objective, picturesque elements 
with the subjective, underlying verities is a triumph of art, — 
the goal which Browning always kept in sight but not always 
attained. 

Mr. Stopford Brooke says : " I do not think Browning ever 
wrote a poem the writing of which he more enjoyed." 

MY STAR 

1855 
This poem might be styled "Any Husband to any,Wife," in 
its revelation of 

The gleam, 
The light that never was, on sea or land, 
The consecration and the poet's dream. 

It is without doubt Browning's tribute to his wife. C£. 
Wordsworth, She was a Phantom of Delight. 

INSTANS TYRANNUS 

1855 
The theme of this poem was suggested by Horace's Ode 
Justitm et Tenacetn (Book iii. Ode 3). 



Pages 138-141] NoteS 375 

The righteous man, of purpose fixed and strong, 

Scorns the depraved commands 
Of angry faction clamouring for wrong, 

Nor fears the despot's frown. 

This sketch of one whose hateful nature drove him to the 
basest action against an unoffending subject has in it the 
two elements common in Browning's poetry : baseness, as in 
Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister, and nobility, as in Pippa 
Passes. The contrast between the serenity of this poor crea- 
ture who prays, and by whose side God stands, and the 
sudden terror of the tyrant, is one of the most striking to be 
found in literature. Mr. Stopford Brooke says : " Browning 
was not one of our modern realists who love to paddle and 
splash in the sewers of humanity." 



CHILDE ROLAND 

1855 

Art is its own excuse for being ; but we are so wedded to 
the idea that nothing of itself will come, that we are not 
satisfied until the meddling intellect misshapes the beauteous 
forms of things ; we must get the specific lesson which the 
artist intended to be taught by each work of art. In the case 
of Browning the lesson in most cases is evident enough ; but 
this romantic story, born out of the folk-lore of a far-away 
past when action was preferred to speculation, has thus far 
baffled all the motive-hunters. 

It is easy to make it an allegory of various types of activity, 
but there is no evidence that the poet intended it to be alle- 
gorical. It has its roots in the romantic soil. In rapidity of 
action, weirdness, natural magic, and fateful catastrophe, it is 
one with the old ballads. 

The following quotations illustrate the extremes of inter- 
pretation of this poem. Dr. Berdoe says: " I consider it an 
allegory of an age of materialistic science, which aims at 
the destruction of all our noblest ideals of religion and faith 
in the unseen. The pilgrim is a truth seeker, misdirected 
by the lying spirit." Mr. James Fotheringham says : " It 
seems to me a romance of the soul in one of its hardest tasks, 
the task of keeping true to itself against itself, the task of keep- 
ing on when the fire of life burns low and experience looks 
not so much painful as hideous and futile." Mr. Stopford 



Z7^ 



Notes [Pages 141-155 



Brooke considers it " a gallop over the moorlands of the imagi- 
nation," and Professor Dowden, "a forlorn romance of weary 
and depressed heroism." Pres. Theodore Roosevelt says : 
" Those who admire the coloring of Turner, those who like to 
read how — and to wonder why — Childe Roland to the Dark 
Tower Came, do not wish always to have the ideas presented 
to them with cold, hard, definite outlines ; and to a man with 
a poetic temperament it is inevitable that life should often 
appear clothed with a certain sad mysticism." 

The image of the horse was created from a red horse 
standing behind a dun one on a large tapestry that hung in 
his drawing-room. 



RESPECTABILITY 

1855 

Here is a wholesome bit of young lover's philosophy, in- 
sisting that the unconventional may yet be truer, and even 
holier, than the ceremonial of the beau monde, where " lampi- 
ons flare " and one must put forward the best foot of conven- 
tion or be condemned. The Poet teaches that the immorality 
of conventionalism is often more dangerous than that of 
license. Cf. Wordsworth, "A Poet! he hath put his heart to 
school." 



THE STATUE AND THE BUST 

1855 

(First appeared in pamphlet form, 1855.) i 

Browning often startles us by raising some strange question 
of ethics. Here is a study of the passion of love under cir- 
cumstances where to the ordinary mind success would be a 
crime, and where the failure was almost as great a crime. 
Around the simple fact of the statue of the grand duke in 
the piazza of SS. Annunciata at Florence, with head turned 
toward the Riccardi Palace. Browning weaves this story of 
the weakness of will in two clandestine lovers. After the 
first strong passion had passed as a dream, they were satisfied 
with the posthumous fame of the Statue and the Bust. 

The poet implies that to have carried out their first plan of 
union would have been success in contrast to the defeat in 
weakness. 



PAGES 156-162] Notes 2>n 



HOW IT STRIKES A CONTEMPORARY 

A Spaniard is telling a friend of the only poet he ever knew 
— a man who was mistaken by the popular imagination for a spy 
in the employ of the inquisitorial king. The people pictured 
his sumptuous living at the very time he was starving and 
dying in a garret. It is the purpose of the artist to reveal 
that while he was despised by men he was dear to God. 
Here Browning illustrates his own ideal of the subjective 
poet as he expressed it in his Essay on Shelley by showing, 
" not what man sees, but what God sees — the ideas of Plato, 
seeds of creation lying burningly in the Divine Hand." 



THE LAST RIDE TOGETHER 

1855 
Browning's habit of concentrating fundamental thought and 
feeling into a moment of one's life was never more clearly 
revealed than in this little poem of resignation under the trial 
of unrequited love. In such moments the poet flashes upon 
us the truth of a soul's ascent to the heights of life, — heights 
never to be lost, come what may, and from which there are 
visions of heights that are higher. This power to rise on 
stepping stones of apparent failure is to his mind the only 
progress ; all else is failure. M. Milsand says : " His imagi- 
natien is attracted and brought into play no less by small 
things than by great; if it has a preference, it is for great 
truths manifesting themselves ui trifling episodes." In this 
method he is a natural successor of Wordsworth. 

In common things that round us lie 
Some random truth he can impart, — 
The harvest of a quiet eye 
That broods and sleeps on his own heart. 



THE PATRIOT 

1855 
Browning as a student of things eternal becomes the his- 
torian of the human heart. He reaches solid ground when 
amid the revelations of fickleness of popular applause with its 
tragic consequences, he assures us that with God there is "no 



378 



Notes [Pages 162-164 



variableness nor shadow of turning." While the characters and 
environment of this poem are Italian, the lesson to be drawn 
from the striking contrast of what was to what is, " 'T is God 
shall repay : I am safer so," is of universal import. 

MEMORABILIA 

1855 

"Composed," says Dr. Berdoe, "in the Roman Campagna 
in the winter of 1853-54." 

This poem originated in the fact that when on one occasion 
Browning was in a London bookstore, he overheard a stranger 
say that he had seen and spoken to Shelley. Years after this 
Browning wrote : " I have not yet forgotten how strangely the 
sight of one who had spoken with Shel'ey affected me." 

It is one of the few poems in which Browning lays aside 
his dramatic masque and speaks in propria persona. The 
memory of his first discovery of Shelley while crossing a tract 
of life otherwise uninteresting, gives the time and place dis- 
tinction by suggesting as did the eagle's feather that there 
are men who, while they inhabit the upper regions, at times 
drop celestial plumage in the path of ordinary mortals. 

What Browning's idea of Shelley was in 1885 is seen in a 
letter which he wrote to Dr. Furnivall, quoted by Professor 
Dowden : " For myself I painfully contrast my notions of 
Shelley the man and Shelley, well, even the poet, with what they 
were sixty years ago." 

ANDREA DEL SARTO 

1855 
Of the origin of this poem Professor Dowden says (quoting 
Mrs. Andrew Crosse) : " When the Brownings were living in 
Florence, Kenyon had begged them to procure for him a copy 
of the portrait in the Pitti of Andrea del Sarto and his wife. 
Mr. Browning was unable to get the copy made with any 
promise of satisfaction, and so wrote the exquisite poem of 
Andrea del Sarto and sent it to Kenyon." 

This poem is a contrast to Fra Lippo Lippi in that what Lippo 
yearns for is now attained in Italian art, and more, — faultless 
technique in painting the actual, — but at the expense of 
Infinite passion and pain, 
Of finite hearts that yearn. 



Pages 164-171] NotCS 379 

In Andrea, Browning makes the attainment of the artist's 
ideal earthly love in the handsome and faithless Lucrezia, 
together with his attainment of perfection in technique, the 
cause of his ruin. Andrea's own dishonesty in dealing with 
others, especially his friend the king who had trusted him, his 
treatment of his parents, and complicity with his wife's im- 
morality, were reasons enough why he could not reach the 
heaven of art granted to Leonardo and Raphael. 

This is almost the only poem of Browning's in which there 
is not some one character to be admired : we neither admire 
nor pity the man and woman ; we despise both. 

This poem has been pronounced by artists of high authority 
" an autobiography of Andrea." 

11. 33-47. " You smile," etc. Mr. Stopford Brooke says : 
" No better sketch could be given of the sudden spiritual fash- 
ion in which great pictures are generated." 

Mrs. Oliphant says of the days in 1529 when Michael Angelo 
was fortifying the city of Florence : " It is touching to find that 
they paused at the sight of the fresco painted recently by An- 
drea del Sarto, and spared the half-ruined walls for the sake 
of the picture, like true art-loving Florentines." 

1. 120. "Nay, Love," etc. This implies that Lucrezia has 
been offended by what has just been said. 

I. 146. "Paris lords." Andrea had been commissioned by 
Francis I. of France to purchase works of art for him, and 
had misused the funds entrusted to him to keep Lucrezia in 
luxury. 

II. 149-165. Andrea visited the French court at the invita- 
tion of the king, and had been honored by him. 

1. 220. " That cousin." One of his wife's paramours has 
whistled to her. 



OLD PICTURES IN FLORENCE 

185s 

This vision of the campanile and what it suggested to the 
poet constitutes one of the most significant revelations of 
the spirit of great art to be found in literature. It is a rec- 
ognition of the new life for art brought in through the funda- 
mental truth of Christianity. The contrast of the idea of the 
physical perfection of the classic era with that of the spiritual 
aspiration of Christian art has repeated itself in history in 
various reforms in art, — noticeably that of Wordsworth in 
poetry, and Turner in painting. 



38o 



Notes [Pages i;i-i73 



Keats alludes to the decadence of the classic arts as follows : 

The winds of heaven blew, the ocean roll'd 
Its gathering waves — ye felt it not. The blue 
Bared its eternal bosom, and the dew 
Of summer nights collected still to make 
The morning precious : beauty was awake — ! 
Why were ye not awake ? 

Wordsworth asserts the new spirit thus : 

How does the meadow-flower its bloom unfold ? 
Because the lovely little flower is free 
Down to its root, and, in that freedom, bold ; 
And so the grandeur of the forest-tree 
Comes not by casting in a formal mould, 
But from its own divine vitality. 

In reviewing the mundane fate of the great masters, Brown- 
ing mildly chides Giotto for permitting such treatment of art 
by a secular age, and especially for not directing him to where 
he might find a coveted bit of his work. He concludes with 
the hope of a new day in the life of art for Italy, when what 
these great painters began will be appreciated and carried a 
step farther. 

I. 15. "Bell-tower." The famous campanile. Cf. Mrs. 
Oliphant, Makers of Floreiice ; The Cathedral Builders. 
Here where Giotto planted 
His campanile, like an unperplexed 
Question to Heaven ! 

Casa Guidi Windows. 

I. 30. " Gift." " That first great gift the vital soul." 
Wordsworth. Cf. Tennyson, Merlin and the Gleam. 

II. 44-48. " Stands One." A graphic picture of the spirits 
of the wronged great watching the abuse of their work. 
The origin of the strong figure in line 45 was evidently from 
an experience Browning had in very early youth. Mrs. Orr 
says that his mother used to read to him from Croxall's fables, 
and that one of the stories was of a lion kicked to death by an 
ass. It affected him so painfully that he hid the book from 
his mother. 

1. 81. Said by one who fears the criticism of the previous 
stanza. It gives the poet an opportunity to assert the claims 
of Greek classic art and to show its limitations. It was a 
stage, an important stage, in the development of art, and the 
world must learn to appreciate it as a preparation for the next 
great revelation of Christian art. 



Pages 174-179] 



Notes 381 



I. 135. "O." The reigning pope, Boniface VIII. or Bene- 
dict XI., sent a messenger into Tuscany for the best specimen 
procurable from each master. He came to Giotto, who gave 
him only the perfect O drawn with a turn of the hand as his 
elbow rested in his side to form a compass. As a result he - 
was selected to go to Rome to adorn St. Peter's. 

II. 149-1 52. " Early Christian art, even by faultily presenting 
spiritual ideals not to be attained on earth but to be pursued 
through an immortal life, taught men to aspire." (E. Dowden.) 
Browning's intimate friend, Mr. W. W. Story, the American 
sculptor, says : " No perfect work was ever made, or ever will 
be made. Success is a relative term. It is not victory, but 
the battle that delights." 

1. 236. " Tablet." The " Last Supper " which had been lost, 
but was afterwards found. Browning saw it when in Florence. 

1. 260. " Casa Guidi." Mrs. Browning's poem inspired by 
the struggles in Italy. 

1.271. "Curt Tuscan." Dignified literary language of 

Italy. 

1. 274. " issimo." Superlative. 

1.275. "To end," etc. Alluding to his own unfinished 
story — the Campanile : 

Or call up him that left half told 
The story of Cambuscan bold. 

Milton, // Penseroso. 

Milton of course has Chaucer in mind, who left the Sqider's 
Tale in the Canterbury Talcs incomplete. 

1. 285. " God and the People." Browning and his wife were 
deeply interested in Italy's struggle for freedom in 1847-1848, 
but were discouraged at the fickleness of the people. They 
still hoped for what is expressed in this stanza, but their hope 
was a vain one. 



SAUL 

1855 

Sections 1-9 were published in 1845; the remainder in 
1855. The first version (Sections 1-9) was in short lines — 
three feet in one and two in the next. In the last revision 
the poet united the two in one strong line. 

More than any other poet of modern times, Browning pays 
indirect compliment to his readers, for though he does not 



382 



Notes [Pages 179-195 



frequent the highways of thought and action that most of us 
travel for the strange and unfrequented byways, he assumes 
that we are as familiar with the conditions there as he himself 
is. This is the main reason for the oft-repeated charge of 
obscurity, which is in reality no obscurity in the poet, but 
darkness in our own minds. Goethe said that the plainest 
of handwriting would be obscure by twilight. 

One of the distinctive features of Browning's nature is a god- 
like sympathy with souls at the crisis of a struggle which to 
the superficial world seems failure. In this he is like the great 
poet who in the twelfth chapter of Hebrews sings the epic of 
failure. 

In the study of the art of healing as revealed to the human 
soul, Browning has attained the highest rank, and nowhere 
does his art show itself more divinely than in his treatment 
of Saul. The subtlety of the various stages in the process of 
healing at the hands of David is a triumph of the artist. The 
young physician first ministers to the physical nature through 
those songs of " the wild joys of living ; " then he voices those 
which appeal to the sense of pride in action, " motions and 
habitudes kingly ; " and lastly, those which give the final reve- 
lation to the soul through the love of the singer, which would 

Wrestle to raise him from sorrow, grow poor to enrich, 

by which is revealed the Christ-nature in man. The poem is so 
simple, so sensuous, so impassioned, that it becomes the most 
inevitable of the poet's works. The teaching that sympathy 
is the law which unites God, man, and nature, and to which 
they respond, is made prophetic of the Messianic ideal of self- 
sacrifice. 

O Saul, it shall be a Face like my face that receives thee. 

The serenity, sweetness, and beauty of the closing scene 
where David returns to his simple task of tending his flocks, 
when all nature is alive with the new impulse and pronounces 
the benediction on his efforts, is not surpassed by anything in 
our literature. 

Only in a few of Browning's longer poems do we find 
such sanity in distributing poetic values as appears in Saul. 
By a series of vivid and impassioned movements, we are 
led by natural degrees to the great illumination. The ele- 
ment of growth is revealed through these movements by a most 
vigorous and original manifestation of poetic complications 



Pages 181-196] NoteS 383 

and resolutions, concluding in that picturesque and tranquil 
dawn when the voice of God in nature pronounced, " E'en 
so, it is so I " Truth and seriousness of subject Browning 
always has, but he often lacks beauty and felicity of form. 
In Saul the intellectual interest is rich, the descriptions bril- 
liant, the passion intense, and the style has a sweetness, grace, 
and finish. Browning is less of an intellectual apologist here 
and more of a poet. Every detail of the oriental scene, pictur- 
ing the life with nature, is made to contribute to the impres- 
siveness of the theme, " a Messianic oratorio." 

Mr. J. T. Nettleship says of Saul : " It is a noble illustration 
of the power of the prayer spirit of the Jewish people, which 
Christians may well follow." 

1. 46. " Jerboa." It is interesting to note that at a very early 
age Browning made friends with the birds and beasts. He 
kept owls, monkeys, eagles, snakes, hedgehogs, and other 
creatures. His eye thus became very keen in observing. 



"DE GUSTIBUS-" 

185s 

This poem reveals how thoroughly Italian in taste Browning 
was ; for in it he good-naturedly contrasts himself with a 
friend who admires England. If we take Tennyson as the 
friend, we have an interesting picture, for Tennyson is as 
typically English in taste as Browning is Italian. If we take 
the conclusion here, " de giistibus est non disptitandum" as 
Browning's ultimatum to the critics, we shall make a mistake, 
for he would never question the fact that, while there should 
be liberty in matters of taste, there must be such a thing as 
authority; he would affirm authority to rest with true genius 
itself, which reveals the universal. 



HOLY CROSS DAY 

1855 

In Old Pictures in Florence Browning indulged ]n a playful 
humor ; in this poem he uses satire not unlike that in Hiidi- 
bras to great advantage against those Christians who would 
make followers of the Cross by a system of tyranny devilish in 



384 



Notes [Pages 196-201 



all its nature. The poet is a draughtsman working with a 
burnt stick, and yet in its clear and expressive lines every 
feature is disclosed with the vividness of a Rembrandt or a 
Retzsch. In the realistic presentation of the motley crowd 
elbowing its way to the church in a masquerade of piety, in 
the piteous and pathetic undertone of revolt against the inhu- 
manity of man culminating in that lurid line which flashes the 
sublime truth of the momentary scene upon us — 

Men I helped to their sins, help me to their God, 

Browning reveals a genuine Shakespearean humor; while in 
the refuge of the sufferer in meditation upon Rabbi Ben 
Ezra's Song of Death, he has a genuine Shakespearean pity for 
a people persecuted by this '' devil's crew " of Christianity. 
Perhaps the highest dramatic touch is in the conclusion, where, 
through their faith in the Messiah, they call upon Christ to 
help them against their Christian tormentors. 

Some critics have maintained that a subject so repulsive in 
its nature cannot be a proper subject for art, and perhaps the 
best statement of their case is to be found in Mr. Walter 
Bagehot's Pure, Ornate, and Grotesque Art in English Poetry. 
Literary Studies, vol. ii. 



CLEON 

1855 

(First printed in pamphlet, privately, 1855.) 

The best introduction to this great poem is that chapter in 
Professor Butcher's interesting book, Some Aspects of the Greek 
Gettiics, where he discusses The Melancholy of the Greeks. 
Professor Butcher says : " The first conscious sigh over the 
mortality of man that is found in Greek poetry is in the words 
spoken by Glaucus to Diomede when the two warriors met in 
single combat, Iliad, vi, 146-9." The pathetic in Greek poetry 
is often not far from the sublime, when the sense of man's 
feebleness heightens his energy of will as with Cleon. 

Browning lays the scene of this poem at a time in the 
Greco-Roman civilization when the feeling of the vanity of 
life had brought paralysis to creative effort, and in the two 
characters presented we have types of this period. In Greek 
art may be found anticipations in many ways of the great awak- 
ening which revealed itself in the sublime utterances of the 
Syrian Peasant, culminating in the Sermon on the Mount. So 



Pages 201-209] JMOtCS 6 

the poet takes as his text the testimony of St. Paul, when 
invited to declare his message on Mars Hill, to the fact tha 
many of the fundamental truths of Christianity were implicit 
in the Greek poets: '^As certain of your own poets have said, 
for we also are his offspring.-'T' (Acts xvii. 28.) They were 
seeking the Lord, if haply they might feel after Him and find 
Him. Protus, the man of action, has achieved the fame and 
material success which men of his type strive for, while he has 
not neglected the culture of art and poetry nor the association 
with those men who had led lives of contemplation ; but he has 
arrived at the period in life when he looks before and after, 
and pines for what is not, - the very completeness of his suc- 
cess brings pain, and so he turns to Cleon, the poet, artist, and 
philosopher, who has sought truth in a life of meditation, and 
asks if he has achieved what he most desired, m the activities 
of creation and appreciation of the things of beauty. Cleon s 
reply written from the courtyard of his house in the sprinkled 
isles reveals first of all (lines 1-30) the luxury of sensuous 
beauty in which a Greek of his period delighted, and in it is 
a compliment to King Protus in that he has appreciated Cleon s 
art enough to make such splendid material return for it. 
The various steps of the poem are clear and impressive ; they 
reveal thoughts which have again and again sounded the deep- 
est yearnings of the human soul. Cleon is sure that he has pro- 
gressed in that he has combined the individual excellences of 
his predecessors into one personality, and gets satisfaction frorn 
the thought that all has been done that was possible to do. And 
when Protus sees immortality in the work which Cleon has 
done, and only vanity in his own, it does not satisfy the poet ; 
such Positivist ideals do not satisfy him in the declme of life, 
_ death is real. The most human of all feelings is this revolt 
of Cleon to the cold philosophy which only intensifies his 
misery ; it is the cry of the soul for personal immortality ; 
and here we find the clear revelation of Browning's own ideal : 
that neither material possessions, honor and fame, nor intellec- 
tual and moral culture, avail to satisfy the soul when '• most 
progress is most failure." , ru- 

Cleon, being contemporary with St. Paul, has heard of his 
teaching, but with a characteristic Greek skepticism he dis- 
misses the idea that any revelation of the destiny of man can 
come from a "barbarian Jew." Cf. Tennyson's treatment of 
this idea in The Palace of Art and Wages. 

25 



^86 JN^OtCS [Pages 210-212 

TWO IN THE CAMPAGNA 

1855 

In this poem we find a method, not uncommon in Browning, 
by which some minute and delicate observation of nature is 
made to lead up to a tender and touching mood of the soul. 
It has been susceptible of two types of interpretation ; one critic 
finding in it " Browning's hunger for eternity in the midst of 
mortality, in which all the hunger for earthly love is burnt to 
dust ;" and the other viewing it " as the expression of a love 
almost but not altogether complete." 

The Campagna, with its restfulness and beaut}', is a fitting 
scene for this poem of unrest and search for infinity. The suffer- 
ing man seeks rest and satisfaction in finite love, and almost 
reaches his goal, only to be startled with the feeling that it 
will not satisfy, as the infinite is summoning him on. It is a 
graphic picture of one moved by a dual passion, — earthly love, 
and hunger for eternity in which alone is completeness. 

The moral significance of the principle of love is the richest 
revelation to be found in Browning's poetry. Love everywhere, 
even in its most unenlightened manifestations, encumbered 
with its earthy vesture, has infinite attraction for him because 
of its possibilities in developing the human soul. Cf. My Star, 
for a revelation of love's complete development in his own life. 



A GRAMMARIAN'S FUNERAL 

1855 

The most prominent and important features of Greek edu- 
cation were comprised under Grammar and Rhetoric, — the 
one including the study of literature, especially poetry ; the 
other, literary expression and forensic argument. At the Re- 
vival of Learning, when Greek had to be mastered as a foreign 
language, grammar came to mean a study of the structure and 
laws of language as a prerequisite to mastery of its literature. 
In such a period Browning lays the scene of this poem. " The 
glorious pedant," as Professor Dowden calls him, whose en- 
thusiasm over little things has often been the subject of satire, 
is canonized by the poet, not for what he actually did, but for 
the spirit which lifted him out of the ruts of drudgery to the 
heights of enjoyment. 



PAGES 212-2,6] Notes 387 

It is a glowing picture of the aspiration of tlie Revival of 
Learning by which routine was softened and ennobled by a god- 
like idealism. Here, as so often, Browning the thinker outshxnes 
Browning the poet ; the intellectual and imaginative elements 
are of the highest order, but the lyrical form is at times strained 
and awkward. The rhapsody of thought and feeling is no 
always revealed in a corresponding rhapsody of emotional 
language. Nothing could be finer than the harmony which 
exists between the aspects of nature and the conception of the 
spirit of this great devotee of the new Learning. As the sun 
shines clearer and the joyous procession climbs higher, leav- 
ing the vulgar thorpes each safe in its tether, the air grows 
fresher and more invigorating and the prospect more extended, 
-symbolic of the infinities of knowledge beyond the earth. 
It is full of the individuality of Browning himself, and it has a 
specific lesson for our time in that it suggests that righteous- 
ness may be found in the spirit of intense and laborious spe- 
cialization. Mr. Stopford Brooke says: "I wish Browmng 
had been buried on a mountain top, all Italy below him. 

Among English poets of the first order, Milton stands alone 
in his absolute devotion to his art. No phase of artistic work 
tempts him from his path. Wordsworth at times yields to the 
seductions of his theory of simplicity ; Tennyson occasional y 
loses the poet in his quest of finish ; and Browning, in subtle 
thinking about his thoughts. When these artists are at their 
best, it is useless, if not immoral, to indulge in the petty gossip 
of the classroom as to which is the greatest. 



" TRANSCENDENTALISM " 

1855 

Poets are sensitive creatures, and feel acutely the sting of 
criticism; consequently, somewhere in their writings one may 
find an Irs Poela full of individuality. This poem is Brown- 
ing's reply to his critics, who had accused hun of too much 
•"naked thought." Had he lived up to his creed as here re- 
valed, thought more of song and less of subtle -tdlectual 
research, what an abundance of 'rose glory ' we should have 
had ' He would have been, as he often is, a veritable magician 

Prof W.T.Courthope,in speaking of the exaggeration of 
the individual element in modern poetry and the neglect of the 
milversal, says of Browning: "Should future generations be 



388 



Notes [Pages 216-224 



less inclined than our own to surrender their imaginations to 
his guidance, he will not be able to appeal to them through that 
element of life which lies in the universal." 

1. 22. Jacob Boehme. 

1. 37. John of Halberstadt. 



ONE WORD MORE 

This epilogue to his " fifty men and women " is Browning's 
Epithalammm, — his expression of joy, peace, and high en- 
deavor which his marriage brought him ; in it the poet 
" attains." It should be read with the similar revelations of do- 
mestic happiness of his two great contemporaries, Wordsworth 
and Tennyson, who owed quite as much of their success as 
poets to noble women as did Browning, albeit in a different 
way. They all reveal the power of the woman of their love 
to keep them true to a high ideal of art and life. See Words- 
worth, " O dearer far than light and life are dear," and 
Tennyson, " Dear, near and true, no truer time itself," etc. 



JAMES LEE'S WIFE 

1S64 

(The original title was James Lee.) 

Before Men and Wotnen issued from the press in the fall of 
1855, the Brownings went to Paris and spent the winter there. 
They returned to London in June, 1856, because of their anxiety 
for the health of their friend, John Kenyon. In the autumn 
they went to Florence. Aurora Leigh, dedicated to Kenyon, 
was published and at once won popular recognition ; but the 
pleasure this brought was clouded because of Kenyon's death. 
He had always been a friend of those in need ; he had given 
the Brownings a hundred jjounds annually, and in his will he 
put them forever beyond anxiety in regard to worldly main- 
tenance by leaving them ;^i 1,000. 

It was in 1858 that Hawthorne and other Americans became 
acquainted with the Brownings, and it is from them that we 
get some of the most interesting and valuable information of 
their life in Florence. 



Pages 224-225] NoteS 3^9 

Of his first meeting the Brownings atCasa Guidi, Hawthorne 
writes : " Really I do not see how Mr. Browning can suppose 
that he has an earthly wife. ... She will flit away from him 
some day when he least thinks of it. She is a good and kind 
fairy, however, and sweetly disposed toward the human race, 
only remotely akin to it. It is wonderful to see how small she 
is, how pale her cheek, how bright and dark her eyes. There 
is not such another figure in the world. ... I could not form 
any judgment about her age; it may range anywhere within 
the limits of human life or elfin life. ... I am rather surprised 
that Browning's conversation should be so clear, and so much 
to the purpose at the moment, since his poetry can seldom 
proceed far without roaming into the high grass of latent 
meanings and obscure allusions." 

I. 22. San Sisto. In Dresden . . . Foligno. In the Vatican. 

II. 23, 24. In the Pitti Palace ... In the Louvre. 
1. 57. Bice. Beatrice. 

Mr. William Sharp says : " It is, strangely enough, from 
Americans that we have the best accounts of the Brownings in 
their life at Casa Guidi. From R. H. Stoddard, Bayard Taylor, 
Nathaniel Hawthorne, George Stillman Hillard, and W. W. 
Story." In this year they spent some time in Paris, where 
Browning's father was living. On returning to Florence the 
winter was found to be too severe for Mrs. Browning, and they 
went to Rome. From this time until 1861 they lived either 
in Rome or in Florence. Browning was now modelling in clay 
in the studio of his friend Story, but no diversion could drive 
away the feeling of anxiety for his wife's health. Suffering 
from a bronchial attack not considered serious, early in the 
morning of June 29, 1861, "while talking, jesting, and giving 
expression to her love in teuderest moods," says W. W. Story, 
she passed from him, at Casa Guidi. She was buried in the 
Protestant Cemetery at Florence, where now stands the beauti- 
ful memorial of her designed by Lord Leighton. 

The municipality of Florence placed a tablet in the walls of 
Casa Guidi with the following from the poet Tommaseo : 

Here lived and died Elizabeth Barrett Browning, 
Who in her woman's heart reconciled the science of 
Learning with the spirit of poetry, and made of her 
Verse a golden ring between Italy and England. 
Grateful Florence places this tablet. 1861. 

Browning's nature was a strong one, but the loss of such 
associations as had glorified his life and art was well-nigh in- 



390 Motes [pages 225-235 

supportable. " I shall grow still, I hope," he said, " but my 
root is taken." Special help came to him at this time from a 
generous and gifted American lady, Mrs. Blagden, who had 
been a friend of the family in Florence. In August he and his 
son went to Paris and spent two months with his father and 
sister. At this time Story wrote : " The home at Florence is 
broken up, and I have lost my best friend. . . . For three years 
now we 've been always together. . . . All the last winter he 
worked with me daily for three hours in my studio." They 
then went to London, chiefly in order to give his son an Eng- 
lish education. In his home at Warwick Crescent he lived in 
retirement and loneliness save for an occasional vacation in the 
Pyrenees or in Brittany, although hard at work on a new vol- 
ume of his poems. Early in 1863 he abandoned his habit of 
seclusion, as being "morbid and unworthy," as Mr. Gosse 
says, " and began to seek recreation at dining-table, concert- 
hall, and places of refined entertainment," as means of es- 
cape for his restless energy. In 1864 the new volume. Dra- 
matis Persona, eighteen poems, was published. The interest 
of the poet here is in types of love, and problems of art and 
religion, as in Men and lVo?nen. 

The first poem of this volume \sjanies Lee's Wife. The 
landscape, forms, and colors which furnish the setting of the 
poem are those of the little hamlet on the coast of Brittany, 
where he visited in 1862-1863. Of the series of soliloquies, 
i-iv and ix are addressed to the husband, who is not present. 
" The first six stanzas of vi," says Professor Corson, " were 
written in Browning's twenty-third year and published in 1836 
in the Monthly Repository, and entitled simply ' Lines.' " In 
a series of meditative lyrics Browning reveals the stages of 
disappointment from anxiety to final action through which 
the woman passes. Is her action true self-sacrifice, or self- 
interest ? James Lee's story has not been told. Mrs. Orr says : 
" We learn from the two last monologues that she was a plain 
woman. This may throw some light on the situation." 



DIS ALITER VISUM 



In the mingling of elements Virgilian and Byronic in the 
title. Browning seems to reveal the fact that time, place, and 
circumstance, however heterogeneous they may seem to the 
average mind, assume a unity to him who views life as a 



Pages 235-244] NoteS 39 1 

whole. The characters and incidents given in this poem are 
not on the whole such as one would think interesting for 
purposes of art; they become interesting only when viewed 
in relation to the poet's idea of time as related to eter- 
nity in the lives of men and women. Tennyson would have 
expanded the elements of this poem into a series full of inci- 
dent, character, and action. 



ABT VOGLER 

1S64 

This is a companion piece to The Grammarian's Funeral and 
a necessary supplement to A Toccata of Galuppi's. It reveals 
a permanent pleasure instead of an ephemeral one. Thought 
and feeling are glorified by imagination in a noble, stately, and 
rapturous movement to the climax in the line, — 

Therefore to whom turn I but to Thee, the ineffable Name ? 

which is the note of Browning's nature destined to sound 
through the ages to cheer and strengthen humanity. It then 
dies away in a cadence subtle, sweet, solemn, and restful. 

Professor Dowden says : " Never were a ghostly troop of 
souls reanimated and incarnated into industrious life more 
actually than by Browning's verse. The poem touches the 
border-land where art and religion meet. ... It is the song of 
triumph of devout old age." 

In this poem we have the highest poetic mood of Brown- 
ing; thought and feeling steal gently upon him as they did so 
often upon Wordsworth and Tennyson. He is usually too 
intellectually alert to be surprised by such imaginative moods. 
It illustrates what Mr. Edmund Gosse says of his escape in 
the volume of 1855 from the designation of '"that unintelli- 
gible man who married a poet.' There is no wilful eccen- 
tricity and interlunar darkness of style here . . . heights were 
scaled of melodious and luminous thought." 



RABBI BEN EZRA 



In this poem, a natural supplement to Clean, we have Hebrew 
optimism in its noblest manifestation. It is deeply suggestive 
that in this type of a " Happy warrior who wrought upon the 



392 Notes [Pages 244-251 

plan which pleased his boyish thought," and who " when the 
mortal mist was gathering drew his breath in confidence of 
Heaven's applause," Browning selected an aged Rabbi. It 
is not the first time that he has shown knowledge of and admi- 
ration for what was most characteristic in the nature of the 
Jew. Mr. Stopford Brooke says: "I do not know whether 
Browning had any Jewish blood in his body by descent, but 
he certainly had Jewish elements in his intellect, spirit, and 
character." 

To the Rabbi life is a thing to be enjoyed to the utmost 
only when it is considered as a divine training for nobler 
functions in the world of the future, a fashioning of the vessel 
meet for the Master's use. Such a life is never to be judged 
merely by what 's done, but rather by what 's striven for. Sat- 
isfaction is in the struggle, even if actual material attainment 
be not reached ; noble exercise of noble ideals is attainment. 
Tennyson touches this idea in By an Evolutionist, and elabo- 
rates it in that noble poem of faith and achievement, /;/ Memo- 
riam ; Wordsworth, in the Ode to Duly, Ode o)i Intimations 
of Immortality, and Character of the Happy Warrior. In all 
of these death is only a call to start on that " adventure brave 
and new." " At no time," says Professor Dowden, " did 
Browning write verse which soars with a more steadfast and 
impassioned libration of wing." 



A DEATH IN THE DESERT 

1864 

This Apologia pro Fide sua touches that sphere of modern 
theology which was so characteristic of Browning's age. It 
is so penetrated with noble emotion and illumined with lofty 
imagination that in spite of its abounding in subtle thought 
it will be read for its essential poetic power. That histor- 
ical accuracy of detail in life and its environment which others 
travel far to find Browning reached here by a gift God gave 
him now and then. The grotto in the desert, where the 
beloved disciple lies dying, the rugged hills and sandy waste, 
the Bactrian waiting for the camels, and the little group of 
witnesses, are sketched with a picturesqueness, vividness, 
dignity, and simplicity which is of the highest art. 

Those who would base faith in Christianity upon the tes- 
timony of mere facts, rather than upon the witness of the race 



Pages 251-270] NoteS 393 

to the certainty of divine love and its power through humanity 
to transform the world, are not doing the highest service to 
mankind. Bishop Brooks once said that when Christianity 
returns to its original state it will be a children's religion. 
The first fourteen lines of Coleridge's Poems of Sleep is an 
expression of such childlike faith. The late Senator Hoar 
called these Hnes "the best statement of religious faith, and 
our relation to the great unseen mysteries, in all literature 
since the New Testament." 

Cf. The Witness to the Influence of Christ, W. Boyd Car- 
penter, Bishop of Ripon. 

U. 1-12. This explanation of the parchment recording the 
last words of St. John purports to have been written by the 
writer, whose wife was a niece of Xanthus. Pamphylax and 
Xanthus with two others are watching the dying Apostle. 



CONFESSIONS 

1864 

Like A Flower's N'ame, this poem reveals the delights which 
come through memory to many who are weary and heavy-laden 
with the world's work and worry, — delights that illumine the 
past and create hope for the future. 



PROSPICE 

1864 

(First appeared in Atlantic Monthly, June, 1864.) 
In Rabbi Ben Ezra death was a friend to be anticipated ; 
here it is an enemy to be conquered. By the Fireside, One 
Word More, and Prospice are full of revelations of the poet's 
personal love : the first two, of his love in association with his 
wife ; the last, written in the autumn following her death, is his 
heroic determination, through the memory of her love, to meet 
and conquer all the enemies of faith and hope in personal 
immortality. It is a trumpet-call to all who are wavering. 
It is as characteristic of Browning as Crossing the Bar is of 
Tennyson. 



394 Notes [pages 270-276 

A FACE 

1864 

Professor Dowden says : " No poem in the volume of Dra- 
matis PersoncE is connected with pictorial art, unless it be the 
few lines entitled A Face, lines of which Emily Patmore, the 
poet's wife, was the subject, and written, as Browning seldom 
wrote, for the mere record of beauty. That ' little head of hers ' 
is transferred to Browning's panel in the manner of an early 
Tuscan piece of ideal loveliness." 

APPARENT FAILURE 



This poem, so characteristic of Browning's splendid opti- 
mism in the presence of human frailty — and wickedness, so 
called — reveals an outlook so broad and a feeling so catholic 
that those reformers who have always in hand 

A broom 
To rid the world of nuisances, 

have rejected its conclusions with scorn. It is in harmony 
with Wordsworth's Old Cumberland Beggar — 

'T is nature's law 
That none, the meanest of created things, 
Of forms created the most vile and brute, 
The dullest or most noxious, should exist 
Divorced from good. 



DRAMATIS PERSONiE 

EPILOGUE 



The thought of this poem supplements that in Death in the 
Desert. It presents three stages in the history of religion : 
that of the Old Testament, with David as the representa- 
tive; that of nineteenth century skepticism, with Renan as 
spokesman ; and that of which Browning, and the great poets 



PAGES 276-278] Notes 395 

of his time, prophesy,— a type of religion which recognizes God 
immanent in his universe. 

Cf. John Fiske, Through Nahire to God : " I often think, 
when working over my plants, of what Linnaeus once said of 
the unfolding of a blossom : ' I saw God in His glory passing 
near me, and bowed my head in worship.' " 

The great English scientist. Sir Oliver Lodge, recently said 
of the arrogance of certain scientists : " In the presence of 
a poet witnessing the cloud-glories of a sunset, who is con- 
strained to ascribe this wealth and prodigality of beauty to the 
joy of the eternal being in his own existence, to an anticipation, 
as it were, of the developments which lie before the universe in 
which he is at work, tending toward an unimaginable perfec- 
tion, it behooves the man of science to put his hand upon his 
mouth." 



Third Period, 1868-1889 
AMPHIBIAN 

PROLOGUE TO FIFINE AT THE FAIR 
1872 

Between 1865 and 1876 Browning lived in London, but made 
frequent visits to France, Normandy, and Scotland. The loss 
of his father, and of his sister-in-law. Miss Arabella Barrett, 
bore heavily upon him. Honor came to him from an increas- 
ing number of readers of his poetry. As so many were young 
men of Oxford and Cambridge, he wrote : " All my new 
cultivators are young men." He was made honorary Fellow 
of Balliol thr-ough his friendship with the great teacher Benja- 
min Jowett. In 1S72 his life was again saddened by the death 
of his friend, Mrs. Blagden. All of this time he was busy at his 
work, for he published from 1868 to 1876 no less than nine 
poems, all of them of considerable length. The Ring and the 
Book contains over twenty-one thousand lines. Through The 
Ring and the Book his poetic genius gained full recognition, 
and henceforth his works had a ready sale. The poems 
of the early third period of his work were on classical subjects 
— studies often baffling in their subtle psychology — and 
sketches. Intellect was usurping the place of imagination. 

This prologue to Fifine was written while he was at Pornic 
on the coast of Brittany, where he was enjoying the quieting 



396 Notes [Pages 278-284 

and refreshing sights and sounds of the sea. It reveals his dual 
nature, the physical and the spiritual, and that as man may 
leave the land and, " unable to fly, swims," so at times he may 
quit the sphere of the material and, " emancipate through pas- 
sion," sport in the atmosphere of poetry. Stanza eighteen 
reveals what Browning did too often in these later years, — 
return too frequently to the world of scientific fact. 



NATURAL MAGIC 

1876 

After the death of Mrs. Blagden, who had been so much to 
Browning and his son, Miss Ann Egerton-Smith, a woman of 
wealth and refinement, whom he had known in Florence, be- 
came an inmate of his home and an influence in his life. 

In 1876 he published a volume of miscellaneous poetry char- 
acterized by much of his early vigor of imagination and deli- 
cacy of passion, but marred at times by a somewhat caustic 
wit aimed at his critics. 

In Natural Magic and Magical Nature, the short love lyrics, 
the beauty is without any disfigurement and is its own excuse 
for being, compelling admiration. The first, a fairy tale of how 
a thing of beauty vanishes ; the second, a revelation of how 
the same thing of beauty becomes a joy forever — no fading 
flower, but an imperishable gem. 



HERVE RIEL 

1876 

This spirited ballad was written during Browning's visit to 
Le Croisic, a little town in Brittany, in 1867. It was first 
printed in the Cornhill Magazine in 1871, and the proceeds 
(;f 100) sent to the people of Paris, who were suffering from the 
results of the Franco-Prussian war. The facts regarding the 
Breton sailor as given by the poet are essentially historical, but 
had been forgotten until this poem recalled them. Records 
show that the holiday was for life. It is significant of the 
poet's sympathies that this dashing ballad of the sea, heroic 
in devotion to home and fatherland, should be in every detail 
of thought and feeling instinct with the soul of a Breton sailor. 
For a similar type of English sailors' heroism see Tennyson's 
Revenge. 



Pages 2S4-291] NoteS 397 

EPILOGUE TO 

PACCHIAROTTO, WITH OTHER POEMS 

1876 

In 1872 Browning dedicated a volume of his poems "To 
Alfred Tennyson. In poetry illustrious and consummate; in 
friendship noble and sincere." In the preface to that volume 
he paid his compliments to those who had complained that 
he was obscure, saying, "Nor do I apprehend any more 
charges of being wilfully obscure, unconsciously careless, or 
perversely harsh." About this time he wrote to a friend : " I 
can have little doubt that my writing has been in the main too 
hard for many I should have been pleased to communicate 
with ; but I never designedly tried to puzzle people, as some of 
my critics have supposed. On the other hand, I never pre- 
tended to offer such literature as should be a substitute for a 
cigar or a game at dominoes to an idle man. So, perhaps, 
on the whole, I get my deserts and something over, — not a 
crowd, but a few I value more." 

In Wordsworth's letter to Lady Beaumont we have a rev- 
elation of what Browning was experiencing. Wordsworth 
says : " Every great and original writer, in proportion as he is 
great and original, must himself create the taste by which he 
is to be relished ; he must teach the art by which he is to be 
seen, and this must be the work of time.'' 

In this Epilogue Browning is not so calm in his own de- 
fence, nor so thorough a reader of his own poetic art, as was 
Wordsworth in his letter to Lady Beaumont. He misses the 
point when he argues that sweetness and strength, beauty and 
truth, can be divorced in great poetry ; his own poetry, where 
it is of the first order, refutes his teaching here. The allusion 
in the second line is to Mrs. Browning. Cf. Mrs. Browning's 
Wine of Cyprus. 

LA SAISIAZ 

(Savoyard for the Sun) 

1878 

In 1877 Browning made an attempt to translate the Aga- 
memnon ^//Eschylus into English verse, but the result proved 
that his premises were wrong, — a verse translation " literal at 



398 



Notes [Pages 291-317 



every cost ; " or that his genius was unequal to the task of 
translation from the Greek to the English. 

La Saisiaz had its origin in events of this same year, when 
Browning, his sister, and Miss Egerton-Smith were spend- 
ing a vacation at La Saisiaz ( Saleve ) near Geneva. The 
natural beauty of the place, its repose, its wealth of prospect, 
refreshed and inspired him. He bathed twice every day in 
a mountain stream; he wrote, he read, he climbed the hills, 
and delighted in nature and the society of his two friends. 
But the holidays came to a tragic close in the sudden death of 
Miss Egerton-Smith while preparing for a climb up Saleve. 
The old yearning of the soul in regard to the great question, 
" If a man die, shall he live again.'" took possession of him 
and these movements of his mind and spirit, records of a 
solitary climb up Saleve, are given to us in this poem, his 
In Metnoriam. 

The introductory movement of the poem reveals to us that 
he has lost none of his early power to detect the minutest de- 
tails of the sights of nature ; that he has still a quick response to 
her gentlest whisper. In Wordsworth's greatest poems nature 
is viewed as the revelation of personality in harmony with 
man, to be communed with, loved, and adored; in Tennyson, 
nature is impersonal, merely the appropriate background or 
framework for his art; but in Browning nature is used for the 
purpose of teaching us to aspire to know what is above and 
beyond — the Infinite God. 

The poem can hardly be called an argument ; it is only a 
meditation. Its action is in the sphere of the subjective, like 
Wordsworth's great Ode, and Tennyson's In Metnoriam. 
Emerson says : " I am a better believer, and all serious souls 
are better believers, in immortality than we can give grounds 
for. The real evidence is too subtle, or is higher than we can 
write down in propositions, and therefore Wordsworth's Ode 
is the best modern essay on the subject." 

Tennyson says in In Metnoriatn : 

If these brief lays, of sorrow born, 
Were taken to be such as closed 
Grave doubts and answers here proposed. 
Then these were such as men might scorn. 

And so with Browning. He writes not to refute or prove, not 
as a theist or agnostic, or Christian even, but rather as a man, 
to reveal what he himself has found to be true in a very large 
way for his own soul, in at least one great crisis of his life. 
There are no facts reviewed either of science or religion, as in 



Pages 291-318] NoteS 399 

In Memoriam. What it may be worth to us he does not imply, 
beyond the fact that he hopes to interest us in what has 
interested him. 

The stages in his meditation interest us, therefore, because 
of the nature of the subject and the character of the poet. 
These stages reveal deliberation, modesty, candor, and direct- 
ness of an open mind — the method of Browning the poet and 
thinker. His line of procedure is a simple and familiar one : 
Our existence here is the result of blind force on the one hand 
or of conscious purpose on the other ; and each one must decide 
this question for himself in the face of such evidence as he 
has. Browning at first doubts here ; but finally nothing less 
than belief in the latter will satisfy the conditions as he 
finds them. Having satisfied himself upon this point, the next 
step is taken by viewing the present stage of man's develop- 
ment as an end in itself, or as a means to a higher attain- 
ment. He accepts the latter view as the only possible one in 
the premises ; then all seems clear. Each act of life has a 
meaning because related to every other, and earth becomes " a 
pupil's place ; " ignorance of the to-morrow is the only possible 
means of attaining, for absolute assurance would defeat the 
end for which we are here. This is no new conclusion on the 
part of the poet; every word he has written from the days of 
Fauliiie has implied or expressed this. His idea of life as a 
probation makes it inevitable that the fact of immortality 
should be impossible of attainment. In this apparent failure 
to attain lies the real success of human activity in faith and 
hope, " the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of 
things not seen." This satisfied the yearning soul of the 
poet ; if it fails to satisfy us, he has nothing to say. 

" May not our ignorance of the future life be providential ? 
May it not be that, while we have enough of faith in the 
future life to enlarge our vision of human possibilities, we 
have not enough to prevent us from putting our best into the 
life that now is ? " (Rev. F. B. Hornbrooke.) 

1. 543. " Hope the arrowy," etc. Professor Dowden says : 
" This conclusion is in entire accordance with what Browning 
wrote two years previously to a lady who supposed herself 
to be dying, and who had thanked him for help derived from 
his poems. ' All the help I can offer, in my poor degree, is the 
assurance that I see ever more reason to hold by the same 
hope.' To Dr. Moncure Conway, who had lost a son, he 
wrote : ' If I, who cannot, would restore your son, He who 
can, will.' " 



400 Notes [Pages 31S-321 

Mr. John Fiske,the distinguished historian and philosopher, 
held opinions upon this great subject quite like those of the 
poet. He says: "For my own part I believe in the immortal- 
ity of the soul, not in the sense in which I accept the demon- 
strable truths of science, but as a supreme act of faith in the 
reasonableness of God's work. Such a belief, relating to 
regions quite inaccessible to experience, cannot of course be 
clothed in terms of definite and tangible meaning. For the 
experience which alone can give us such terms, we must 
await that solemn day which is to overtake us all." — Destiny 
of Man, p. 116. 

Mr. Henry Drummond, after reviewing the processes of 
nature as revealed in the Evolutionist, writes : " Kindled even 
by this past, man may surely say, ' I shall arrive ! ' The further 
evolution must go on, Higher Kingdoms come, — first the 
blade, where we are to-day; then the ear, where we shall 
be to-morrow ; then the full corn in the ear." — The Ascent oj 
Man, chap. x. 

11. 550, etc. Looking down upon Geneva, Browning asso- 
ciates with the place some famous men who did a part of their 
work there. Each of these men held opinions which conserva- 
tive thinkers called heretical. Rousseau, who led the revolt 
against the religion and philosophy of his time ; Diodati, who 
was expelled from Italy because of his religious views, and 
taught Hebrew in Geneva (he was the uncle of Charles 
Diodati, the young friend of Milton) ; Byron, who wrote his 
Prisoner of Chillon at Ouchy by the lake ; Voltaire, who 
built a church at Ferney with the inscription " Deo ercxit 
Voltaire ;" Gibbon, who wrote a part of his great history at 
Lausanne : all of these Browning believed helped to pass on 
the torch of truth, because they 

At least believed in Soul, were very sure of God. 

1. 580. " Makistos." Alluding probably to the town from 
whose watch-tower the beacon flashed the news of the capture 
of Troy by the Greeks, as in Aga7nemnon : 

So as on high to skim the broad sea's back 
The stalwart fire rejoicing went its way ; 
The pine-wood, like a sun, sent forth its light, 
Of golden radiance to Makistos' watch. 

In a letter written soon after the death of Mr. W. W. Story's 
little son, Browning wrote : " I can't look on the earth side of 
death. When I look deathward, I look over death and up- 
ward, or I can't look that way at all.'' 



Pages 322-331] NoteS 4OI 

THE TWO POETS OF CROISIC 

1878 
EPILOGUE 

After the death of his wife, Browning did not return to Italy 
until the fall of 1878, from which time until his death he spent 
a part of each year at Venice or Asolo. 

The Tiuo Poets of Croisic was written in London soon after 
La Saisiaz. The only part of the poem which is in Browning's 
best vein is the Epilogue, in which he pays a delicate compli- 
ment to those women who by their love have added that 
" treble " to his otherwise " sombre drone." 



PHEIDIPPIDES 

1879 

In 1879 Browning published the first series of Dramatic 
Idyls. While he is interested mainly in the Epic of Thought, 
which yields a philosophy of life, he often has the genuine 
Homeric delight in the Epic of Action, which attracts us by 
pictures of noble personalities. In Herve Riel and Pheidip- 
pides, heroic idyls of different times and nations, he touches 
those feelings which respond to the folk-lore of all peoples. 
He gives us the riches of ballad literature, — a natural, as 
contrasted with a literary poetry. 

This idyl of heroic devotion is based on Greek legendary 
history as given by Plerodotus (Book VI) and others. It falls 
naturally into three parts. The first reveals how the Athenian 
athlete Pheidippides ran two days and two nights to reach 
Sparta and implore her aid against the Persians ; when the 
Spartans delayed answer, and at last replied that they could not 
go to war while the moon was not yet at full, the hero started 
back, calling upon the gods, and while passing Parnassus at the 
top of his speed he saw Pan and heard the voice commanding 
him to halt. The god asks why Athens does not follow him, 
and commands the runner to say that he will nevertheless aid 
them, giving as a token a sprig of fennel. Pheidippides then 
flew to Athens with the shout, " Praise Pan, we stand no more 
in danger ! " The second part introduces Miltiades, asking what 
reward Pan promised him. The youth replies, " No vulgar 
26 



402 Notes [Pages 331-337 

reward," only release from his toil and union with the girl 
he loved, the founding of a house in Athens. The third part, 
revealing the pathos and power of the old story, shows how the 
youth fought at Marathon, and, when victory had been won, 
throwing down his shield, he ran to the Acropolis and shouted 
Xaipfre, ytK&ixev, "Rejoice, we conquer!" and fell dead in 
exultant joy, — the reward of Pan for well doing. This is 
another illustration of Browning's " apparent failure " which is 
highest success; in this respect Browning's narrative ballads 
differ from the old folk-ballads, which never reach a climax 
of passion ; the feeling is distributed throughout. Cf. Mrs. 
Browning's T/ie Dead Pan. 

Mrs. Orr calls attention to the metre here, which the poet 
created as specially fit for such a poem. 



MUL^YKEH 



In 1880 Browning made the acquaintance of an American 
lady, Mrs. Arthur Bronson, who was living at Asolo. Through 
her generous hospitality and ready sympathy, she became 
associated with the remaining years of his life. In this year he 
published the second series of Dramatic Idyls. 

In Muleykeh, a pathetic idyl of the East, Browning makes 
central a characteristic feature of oriental character, — the 
affection of man for his noble associate, the horse. In How 
They Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix, this is merely 
suggested. Such a poem as this, full of action and passion, 
would seem naturally to belong to the period of youth rather 
than to that of age. Here Browning reveals his power " to 
recapture the first fine careless rapture." The pathetic close, 
as Professor Dowden says, " shows that to perfect love, pride 
in the supremacy of the beloved is more than possession." 

Cf. Kipling's The Ballad of East and West. 

EPILOGUE TO DRAMATIC IDYLS 

This poem is of interest as revealing Browning's theory of 
contrasts between ephemeral poetry and that which endures. 
The same is shown in Wordsworth's definition of poetry as 
" Emotion recollected in tranquillity," and Tennyson's — 

I think not much of yours or mine, 

I hear the roll of the ages. 



Pages 337-338] NoteS 4^3 

WANTING IS — WHAT? '^ 

1S83 

In i8Si the English Browning Society was established and 
gave new impetus to the increasing interest in his life and 
work. To it we owe much that is interesting and valuable. 
To Browning himself, as to some others, at first it seemed 
somewhat excessive in its enthusiasm, for he wrote : " That 
there is a grotesque side to the thing is certain. The Brown- 
ing Society, I need not say, as well as Browning himself, is a 
fair game for criticism. ... I had no more to do with found- 
ing it than a babe unborn." That he appreciated the origin 
and purpose of the society is certain. 

In 1883 he published the v Q\Mm& Jocoseria, " grave and gay." 
The little poem, Watttifig is— What? which stood first in the 
volume, reveals in terse and rugged form the power and po- 
tency of love — the Christ spirit — to complete incompletion, 
which is his message so frequently in longer poems. It is re- 
lated to his work much as Wordsworth's " My heart leaps 
up " is to his. 



NEVER THE TIME AND THE PLACE 

1883 

Some think this poem is in remembrance of his wife, while 
others consider it purely imaginative ; at any rate, it is a de- 
lightful bit of work, which should be read with By the Fireside. 
It is full of that subtle and pervasive power which conquers 
all obstacles by its lovely idealism, as did his early love for 
Miss Barrett while beating its wings against the cage of ad- 
verse circumstances. 



FERISHTAH'S FANCIES 

EPILOGUE 



In 1884, owing to the ill-health of his sister. Browning did 
not travel much, but remained at the charming villa of an 
American friend, Mrs. Bloomfield Moore, at St. Moritz. 



404 Notes [Pages 338-340 

In this " delicious mountain air," he writes, " my sister is 
absolutely herself again ; I was hardly in want of such 
doctoring." 

He published this year Ferisktak's Fancies, — a series of 
poems under this fanciful Persian title which reveal that a 
young man's heart still beats in his breast, but to the rhythm 
of an old man's wisdom. 

The note here is — 

' T is life, not death, for which we pant ; 
More life and fuller that we want, 

and this is heard most clearly in the Epilogue. None of the 
great problems of life can be settled by mere intellect; until 
the halo of individual passion envelops, warms, and stimulates 
them, they fail to move men and women to noble action. 

Here he builds upon the plan that pleased his boyish 
thought, and the result is the essential Browning. 



ASOLANDO 

PROLOGUE 



From 1884 to 1889 Browning's life was quiet and uneventful, 
although full of interest ; there was little searching, but much 
rest and peace in the enjoyment of those truths of the heart 
which, once wakened, perish never. There was a sweetness 
and graciousness in his old age born of serenity and the 
assurance that he had attained, not to the very things for 
which he had sought, but to something infinitely higher, that 

Through love, through hope, and faith's transcendent dower, 
We feel that we are greater than we knew. 

" Love, honor, troops of friends," came to him, and he ac- 
knowledged them all with a full heart. 

He spent a part of almost every year in travel, mostly in 
Italy, and when in 1885 his son visited there, for the first time 
since childhood, he thought of securing a haven of rest from 
the storms of age, and negotiated for the Palazzo Manzoni, 
which he considered the loveliest house in Venice. When the 
bargain was about to be closed, he found to his great disap- 
pointment that the foundations were not sound, and the 
cherished hope had to be abandoned. 



Pages 340-341] NoteS 405 

In 1887 he published a volume, Parleyings with Certain 
People, which revealed that he still loved the intellectual 
gymnastics of his middle life. While the subjects are varied, 
only here and there is to be found the fascinating lyrical cry, 
or any descriptive beauty, and it is evident, as Mr. Stopford 
Brooke says, that "imagination such as belongs to a poet has 
deserted Browning." 

It was in this year that he changed his London residence 
from Warwick Crescent to De Vere Gardens. In Italy he and 
his sister were guests of Mrs. Bronson in Venice. In 18S8 his 
son, soon after his marriage, acquired the Palazzo Rezzonico, 
on the Grand Canal, and there he found a " corner for his old 
age." In the spring of 1889 he was in England, but returned 
to Italy in July. He was delighted to visit Asolo, fragrant 
with the memory of Pippa's songs, and said to Mrs. Bronson : 
" I was right to fall in love with the place fifty years ago, was 
I not ? " He even planned to purchase a house there, where 
he might spend his summers, enjoying the life with nature. 
"It shall have a tower," he said, "whence I can see Venice at 
every hour of the day, and I shall call it Pippa's Tower." On 
his return to Venice in November, full of plans for the future, he 
began to have some discomfort from shortness of breath, which 
interfered with vigorous exercise ; and, having taken cold, 
physicians perceived the gravity of the situation. He had 
already arranged for a new volume of his poems, Asolando, to 
be brought out in England, and on the evening of December 12, 
as he lay in bed, he heard the great bell of San Marco strike ten 
and asked if there were any news of the volume. His son 
read him a telegram telling that it was that day published, and 
of the great prospects of its sale. The aged poet smiled and 
said, " How gratifying ! " and passed away. 

" Browning had said that he wished to be buried where he 
died, " says Mrs. Orr : " if in England, with his mother ; if in 
France, with his father ; if in Italy, with his wife." But Dean 
Stanley offered a grave in the old Abbey, and the offer was ac- 
cepted, partly because the cemetery at Florence in which his 
wife was buried was closed. A private service was held in 
the Palazzo Rezzonico, and then the coffin was borne to the 
chapel on the island of San Michele. Mr. William Sharp 
says : " Venice has never in modern times afforded a more 
impressive sight than those craped processional gondolas 
following the high flower-strewn funeral barge through the 
thronged waterways and out across the lagoon to the desolate 
Isle of the Dead." Thence the body was taken to De Vere 



4o6 



Notes [Pages 341-343 



Gardens ; and on the last day of the year, amid a throng 
of mourners of all classes, to the music of Mrs. Browning's 
" He giveth his beloved sleep," it was laid at rest in West- 
minster Abbey. 

The city of Venice affixed a memorial tablet to the Rezzonico 
Palace with the following inscription : 

A 

ROBERTO BROWNING 

MORTO EN QUESTO PALAZZO 

// 12 Dicentbre i88g 

VENEZIE 

POSE 

" Open my heart and you will see 
Graved inside it, ' Italy.' " 

Asolo also placed a tablet on the house which Browning had 
occupied there. 

Asolando was dedicated "To Mrs. Arthur Bronson. To 
whom but you, dear Friend, should I dedicate verses — some 
few written, all of them supervised, in the comfort of your 
presence." 

The volume reveals the sights and sounds, the joyous 
reveries and noble emotions, his vespers on that evening of 
Extraordinary Beauty and Splendor — his closing years. 

But 't is endued with power to stay, 
And sanctify one closing day, 
That frail mortality may see — 
What is ? — ah no, but what can be. 



Surely, 



The sunrise 
Well warranted our faith in this full noon. 



The Prologue sounds the note of Wordsworth in the great 
Ode. He thinks of that hour of splendor in the grass and 
beauty in the flower, when he first visited Asolo ; and feels 
that there hath passed away a glory from the earth. But in 
the poems which follow he reveals 

Those first affections, 
Those shadowy recollections, 
Which, be they what they may. 
Are yet the fountain light of all our day, 
Are yet a master light of all our seeing. 



Page 344] NoteS 407 

And in the noble Epilogtie he is clear and strong in the 
determination that he 

Will grieve not, rather find 
Strength in what remains behind ; 
In the primal sympathy 
Which, having been, must ever be : 
In the soothing thoughts that spring 
Out of human suffering ; 
In the faith that looks through death, 
In the years that bring the philosophic mind. 

In his interesting essay, Browning in Westminster Abbey, 
Mr. Henry James writes : " A good many oddities and a good 
many great writers have been entombed in the Abbey ; but 
none of the odd ones have been so great, and none of the 
great ones so odd. . . . His voice sounds loudest, and also 
clearest, for the things that, as a race, we like best, — the 
fascination of faith, the acceptance of life, the respect for its 
mysteries, the endurance of its changes, the vitality of the will, 
the validity of character, the beauty of action, the seriousness, 
above all, of the great human passion." 

Mr. C. H. Herford says: " Browning's poetry is one of the 
most potent of the influences which in the nineteenth century 
helped to break down the shallow and mischievous distinction 
between the ' sacred ' and the ' secular,' and to set in its place 
the profounder division between man enslaved by apathy, 
routine, and mechanical morality, and man lifted by the law 
of love into a service which is perfect freedom, into an ap- 
proximation to God which is only the fullest realization of 
humanity." 



REFERENCES 

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL 

Alexander, W. H. Introduction to the Poetry of Robert 

Browning. 
Bagehot, W. Literary Studies. Vol. II. Wordsworth, 

Tennyson, and Browning. 
Berdoe, E. Browning's Message to his Time. 

The Browning Cyclopedia. 

Birrell, a. Essays and Addresses. Robert Browning. 

Obiter Dicta. First Series. On the Alleged Obscurity 

of Mr. Browning's Poetry. 

Bronson, Mrs. A. Browning in a Solo. Century Magazine. 
1900. 

Browning in Venice. Century Magazine. 1900. 

Browning, R., and Elizabeth Barrett. Letters. 
Browning Society Papers. Boston. 
Browning Society Papers. London. 

Burt, M. E. Browning's Women. 

Chesterton, G. K. Robert Browning. (English Men of 

Letters.) 
Cooke, G. W. Poets and Problems. 
Corson, H. Introduction to the Study of Robert Browning's 

Poetry. 
Dawson, W. J. Makers of Modern English. Robert 

Browning. 
Dowden, E. Studies in Literature. Mr. Browning and Mr. 

Tennyson. 

Robert Browning. 

Fotheringham, J. Studies in the Poetry of Robert 

Browning. 
Gosse, E. Critical Kit-Kats. The Sonnets from the 

Portuguese. 

Robert Browning Personalia. 

Hawthorne, N. Italian Note Books. 

Herford, C. H. Robert Browning. (Modern Writers.) 
Hutton, R. H. Literary Essays. Mr. Browning. 
James, H. William Wetmore Story and his friends. 



4IO References 

Jones, H. Browning as a Religious and Philosophical 

Teacher. 
Nettleship, J. T. Essays on Browning's Poetry. 
Noel, R. Essays on Poetry and Poets. Robert Browning. 
Orr, Mrs. S. Hand Book to Robert Browning's Works. 

Robert Browning, Life and Letters. 

Ritchie, Mrs. Anne Thackeray. Records of Tennyson, 

Ruskin, and Browning. 
Scudder, Miss V. The Life of the Spirit in the Modern 

English Poets. 
Sharp, W. Robert Browning. ( Great Writers Series.) 
Stedman, E. C. Victorian Poets. 
Stephen, L. Studies of a Biographer. Vol. III. The 

Browning Letters. 
Story, W. W. Conversations in a Studio. 
Symons, a. Introduction to the Study of Robert Browning. 
Wise, T. J. Bibliography of Browning's Poetry. 



INDEX TO POEMS 

Page 

Abt Vogler 240 

Amphibian 276 

Andrea del Sarto 164 

Any Wife to Any Husband 125 

Apparent Failure 271 

Asolando, Prologue to 340 

" Epilogue to 344 

Bishop, The, Orders his Tomb at Saint Praxed's Church 55 

Boot and Saddle 26 

Boy, The, and the Angel 84 

By the Fireside 118 

Campagna, Two in the 210 

Cavalier Tunes 25 

" Childe Roland to the Dark Tower came" , ... 141 

Cleon 201 

Confessions 268 

Cristina 39 

Croisic, The Two Poets of, Epilogue to 322 

" De GusTiBUS — " 195 

Death in the Desert, A 251 

Dis Aliier Visum ; or, Le Byron de nos Jours .... 235 

Dramatic Idyls, Second Series, Epilogue to 337 

Dramatis Personas, Epilogue to 273 

Duchess, My Last 27 

Duchess, The Flight of the 61 

Earth's Immortalities 84 

Epistle, An, containing the Strange Medical Experience 

of Karshish, the Arab Physician 130 

Evelyn Hope 99 

Face, A 270 

Failure, Apparent 271 

Fame 84 



412 Index to Poems 

Page 

Ferishtah's Fancies, Epilogue to 338 

Fifine at the Fair, Prologue to 276 

Flight of the Duchess, The 61 

Florence, Old Pictures in 171 

Flower's Name, The 58 

Fra Lippo Lippi 105 

French Camp, Incident of the 28 

Galuppi's, A Toccata of 115 

Garden Fancies 58 

" Ghent to Aix, How they brought the Good News from " 49 

Girl, A Pearl, a 343 

Give a Rouse 26 

Glove, The 87 

Grammarian's Funeral, A 212 

Herv6 Riel 279 

Holy-Cross Day 196 

Home Thoughts, from Abroad 54 

Home Thoughts, from the Sea 55 

How it Strikes a Contemporary 156 

" How they brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix " 49 

Incident of the French Camp 28 

Instans Tyrannus 138 

James Lee's Wife 224 

La Saisiaz 291 

Last Duchess, My 27 

Last Ride Together, The 159 

Lippo Lippi, Fra 105 

Lost Leader, The 53 

Love Among the Ruins 92 

Lovers' Quarrel, A 94 

Magical Nature 279 

Marching Along 25 

Memorabilia 163 

Misconceptions 217 

Muleykeh 331 

My Last Duchess 27 

My Star 138 

Natural Magic 278 

Never the Time and the Place 338 



Index to Poems 413 

Page 

Old Pictures in Florence 171 

One Word More. To E. B. B 218 

Pacchiarotto, and how he Worked in Distemper, 

Epilogue to 284 

Paracelsus, Selections from 7 

Patriot, The — An Old Story 162 

Pauline, Selections from i 

Pearl, a Girl, A 343 

Pheidippides 325 

Pictor Ignotus 51 

Pictures, Old, in Florence 171 

Pied Piper of Hamelin, The — A Child's Story . ... 41 

Pippa Passes, Selections from 20 

Poetics 342 

Prospice 269 

Quarrel, A Lovers' 94 

Rabbi Ben Ezra 244 

Respectability 147 

Saisiaz, La 291 

Saul ' 179 

Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister 30 

Speculative 343 

Star, My 138 

Statue, The, and the Bust 148 

Summum Bonum 342 

Toccata of Galuppi's, A 115 

"Transcendentalism; A Poem in Twelve Books " . . 216 

Two in the Campagna 210 

Two Poets of Croisic, The Epilogue 322 

Tyrannus, Instans 138 

Up at a Villa — Down in the City loi 

VoGLER, Abt 240 

Wanting is — What? 337 

Waring 32 

Wife, Any, to Any Husband 125 



INDEX TO FIRST LINES 

Page 

A King lived long ago ^^ 

A simple ring with a single stone 34J 

Ah, did you once see Shelley plain i03 

Ah, Love, but a day "4 

All I can say is — I saw it I . . 270 

All service ranks the same with God 20 

All that I know • • • • . • • • ' • ^3» 

All the breath and the bloom of the year in the bag ot 

one bee • • ■^'z 

" As like as a Hand to another Hand ! 231 

At the midnight in the silence of the sleep-time ... 344 

Beautiful Evelyn Hope is dead ! 99 

Boot, saddle, to horse, and away ! 20 

But do not let us quarrel any more io4 

Cleon the poet (from the sprinkled isles 201 

Dared and done : at last I stand upon the summit . . 292 
Dear, had the world in its caprice M7 

Fear death ? — to feel the fog in my throat 269 

Fee, faw, fum ! bubble and squeak 1 ^97 

First I salute this soil of the blessed, river and rock 1 . . 325 

Flower — I never fancied, jewel — I profess you ! . . 279 

Give her but a least excuse to love me ! 20 

Good, to forgive ^^i 

Grow old along with me ! 244 

Gr-r-r — there, go, my heart's abhorrence I 3° 

Had I but plenty of money, money enough and to spare loi 

Hamelin Town 's in Brunswick 4^ 

Heap cassia, sandal-buds, and stripes 12 

" Heigho," yawned one day King Francis »7 

Here 's the garden she walked across 5° 

How well I know what I mean to do ^^° 

I AM poor brother Lippo, by your leave ! •;•••• ^°^ 

I could have painted pictures like that youth s . • . . 5^ 

I leaned on the turf "^ 

I only knew one poet in my life ^2P 



4i6 



Index to First Lines 



Page 

I said — Then, dearest, since 't is so 159 

I sprang to the stirrup, and Joris, and he 49 

I will be quiet and talk with you 226 

I wonder do you feel to-day 210 

If a stranger passed the tent of Hoseyn, he cried " A 

churl's ! " 331 

If one could have that little head of hers 270 

Is all our fire of shipwreck wood 224 

It was roses, roses, all the way 162 

Just for a handful of silver he left us 53 

Karshish, the picker-up of learning's crumbs .... 130 

Kentish Sir Byng stood for his King 25 

King Charles, and who '11 do him right now ? 20 

Let us begin and carry up this corpse 212 

Morning, evening, noon and night 84 

My first thought was, he lied in every word 141 

My love, this is the bitterest, that thou 125 

Never the time and the place 338 

Nobly, nobly Cape Saint Vincent to the Northwest died 

away 55 

No, for I '11 save it I Seven years since 271 

Of the million or two, more or less 138 

Oh, Galuppi, Baldassaro, this is very sad to find . . . 115 

Oh, good gigantic smile o' the brown old earth . . . 231 

Oh, Love — no, Love! All the noise below, Love . . 338 

Oh, to be in England 54 

Oh, what a dawn of day ! 94 

On the first of the Feast of Feasts 273 

On the sea and at the Hogue, sixteen hundred ninety-two 279 

Others may need new life in Heaven 343 

Over-head the tree-tops meet 22 

Said Abner, " At last thou art come I Ere I tell, ere 

thou speak I79 

See, as the prettiest graves will do in time 84 

She should never have looked at me 39 

" So say the foolish ! " Say the foolish so. Love ? . . . 342 

Still ailing, Wind? Wilt be appeased or no ? .... 228 

Stop, let me have the truth of that ! 235 

Stop playing, poet ! May a brother speak ? 216 

[Supposed of Pamphylax the Antiochene 251 

That 's my last Duchess painted on the wall .... 27 

The fancy I had to-day 276 

The morn when first it thunders in March 171 



Index to First Lines 417 

Page 

" The Poet's age is sad : for why ? 340 

" The poets pour us wine — " 284 

The swallow has set her six young on the rail .... 225 

The year 's at the spring 20 

There is nothing to remember in me 234 

There 's a palace in Florence, the world knows well . . 148 

There they are, my fifty men and women 218 

This is a spray the Bird clung to 217 

Thus the Mayne glideth 12 

" Touch him ne'er so lightly, into song he broke . . . 337 

Vanity, saith the preacher, vanity ! 55 

Wanting is — what? 337 

What a pretty tale you told me 322 

What is he buzzing in my ears 'i 268 

What 's become of Waring 32 

Where the quiet-coloured end of evening smiles ... 92 
Would that the structure brave, the manifold music I 

build 240 

You know, we French stormed Ratisbon 28 

Your ghost will walk, you lover of trees 195 

You 're my friend 61 



27 



OCT 9 



